When my father was in his mid-80s he famously said: "If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself" (his favorite food was limp bacon). In contrast to the like-father-like-son myth, as I have now reached that dubious eight-decade milestone I am at least trying to take better care of myself (limp bacon is a treat for our dog, but not me). But the older I get the more difficult that becomes, and I'm getting worn out just trying to out run aging, which always seems to stay several steps ahead of me. For example, I eat way less and exercise about the same as I did 10 or 20 years ago, but I can't seem to keep the pounds off. This seems to be due to one's biochemistry getting all out of whack and doing strange things as you age. For example, a three or four-ounce piece of cake, which is mostly sugar and flour, can in very short order turn into a pound or so of fat mass. Basically, this has to do with a shift in the nature of one's biochemistry as you get older. To make a long story short, it's as if your body has decided that you're too old to be doing much physical stuff, so there is no point in converting all that sugar into useful energy. Just mix the sugar with some water, convert it all to fat and call it a day. I could go on and on with examples which make aging "challenging" to say the least. Suffice it to quote Evil Knievel who said: "Aging ain't for sissies.".
Given all the misgivings of aging we wonder what, if any, are its upsides? One answer frequently given is that elders provide wisdom to society. "With age comes wisdom" is an overused saying for which there is not a shred of evidence. In my experience with life, along with my 40 some odd years as a teacher, I've never found elders in general to be any more or less wise than any other age group. In fact, some of the wisest people that I have encountered have been students of mine ranging from fifth graders to college grad students.
Darwin thought that aging evolved so that older generations could give guidance and learning to younger ones, thereby fostering survival of the specie. Really! Since when has any member of our specie who is under 30 ever listened to anyone over 60?
The bottom line here is that, as far as I can tell, and being an elder myself, there is nothing really unique about an elder's role, or not, in society. Notwithstanding that revelation, I would still like to make the best use of the time that I have remaining, even if what I do is only useful to myself. But what to do?
To get a base-line handle on how members of our specie could, or should, handle old age and retirement, I visited the zoo to see how elder members of our Darwinian ancestors, the apes, manage it. One reason why apes make a good base-line for this enquiry is that, unlike us, they are not swindled by social constructs as to what elders should or shouldn't be doing. Anyway, I found that apes basically spend their days doing whatever amuses them. Climbing on ropes, chewing on sticks, chasing off younger ones (so much for Darwin's idea on the role of elders) and so-on. In other words, they're self-reliant when it comes to occupying themselves.
In thinking about how elder apes occupy the day, I realized there are a number of things I enjoy doing just for myself, none of which holds much promise of benefiting anyone other than myself. This includes writing essays, such as this one, that no one is likely to read or derive much benefit from if they do.
Following up on this notion, I have decided that until the pitfalls of aging outstrip my ability to fend them off, I shall continue to do things such as write essays of questionable merit as well as engage in a multitude of other activities that I enjoy. If any of these turn out to be beneficial to society that's good. But if not, that's OK too. For all chronologically challenged comrades who would like to follow suit, Welcome to the Monkey House*.
*by Kurt Vonnegut, (first publication, 1950)