Turning 60 is not an insignificant milestone. It sure has me thinking a lot lately, given that I’m now about three months into my seventh decade.
And it appears that I’m not the only one with the implications of baby-boomer aging on my mind.
Last month, in an op-ed piece entitled “Second Acts,” Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman told a small part of the Al Gore story…in essence arguing that, in the aftermath of his loss to George W. Bush, Gore was able to rediscover his true calling. Goodman believes that he “found himself by losing himself – literally losing – and being liberated from ambition.”
Further, Goodman suggests that Gore is blazing a new trail for the baby-boomer generation. “Consider the new sixtysomethings,” she says…
…Next Friday, Hillary Clinton turns 60 and her second act is running for president. And when the new Harvard president, Drew Gilpin Faust, 60, met with her Bryn Mawr classmates last summer? Many were talking about leaving their “extreme jobs” just as she was installed in hers.
Baby boomers are the first generation that can look forward to such a lengthy and (fingers crossed) healthy stage of later life. They are as likely to be talking about what they want to do next as about where they want to retire. Never mind all those declarations that 60 is the new 40. In fact, 60 is the new 60.
For me, at age 60, it’s certainly not the case that I’m talking about retirement. As always, in my life, it’s about what to do next.
Not that the question of “what to do next” is, I hope, going to come up very soon (given that I’ve, just recently, totally changed my life yet again). It’s just that, like Gore, in losing, I seem to have found a new direction. Hopefully one that will sustain me for some time to come.
As I’ve written about before, I was forced to reconsider my life almost from the moment the Governor of Oregon dismissed the entire State Board of Higher Education on November 13, 2003. With that single act, after nine years as a policy-wonk type, I needed to find someplace else to land, something else to do. As with our former Vice President, who found a different ladder to climb after some time in the wilderness (how’s that for mixing metaphors?!), I too spent some years out there in the wild, trying to come to grips with the realities of loss and seeking to find a way to let go. Specifically, my path of soul-searching consisted of three years and two temporary jobs at different dysfunctional institutions. Although they took a high personal toll, the growth-providing experiences I had from 2004 to 2007 laid the foundation for finding my version of the “extreme job” …which ultimately came within a month of my 60th birthday.
Not that my current place is the be-all and end-all. Surely it isn’t. When I was recently providing an outline of my non-linear, wayward life to the young woman who now cuts my hair, she seemed genuinely curious about all those twists and turns. At one point, I disclosed that I had very few regrets, but that “if I had it all to do over again,” I might try to focus my life more on writing and photography. When she suggested that “it’s not too late…”, I balked. I indicated that I can write and do photography and pursue my current professional path: that changing directions entirely, at this point, might just take more energy than I have.
But, who knows? I don’t know how long I’ll live. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far, it’s that you can never know what tomorrow will bring. As Ellen Goodman states, “…under the old compact, sixtysomethings were supposed to get out of the way and out of work. They were encouraged by financial incentives and prodded by discrimination. Now we are drawing blueprints for people who see themselves more as citizens than seniors.”
In all honesty, I don’t have any idea when the next fork in the road will present itself to me. For now, though, despite all those aches and pains, I am a citizen, not a senior.
Shortly after I posted this article, I received an email asking for permission to reprint it. The request came from Frédéric Serrière, editor of theMatureMarket.com website. I gave the green light, and today I discovered that this piece had, indeed, been published. You may find it by clicking here.
What if I had been born with more imagination, talent, artistic ability or intellectual capacity than was granted to me? What if I’d grown up to have more wisdom than is mine?
What if I had more depth as a human being?
What if I hadn’t been born working-class in the Midwest but rather to wealth in mid-town Manhattan? Or to college professors in Berkeley?
What if I’d not been so slight in stature that I was typically the last kid picked for a team? What if I were tall and strong, with perfect teeth and an infectious, extraverted personality? What if I’d had charismatic good looks in this life?
What if I’d lived one of the great love stories? How would my life be different if I’d found my soulmate early in life and had a loving, devoted partner by my side through all my struggles?
What if I’d not had to cope with chronic pain for most of my life?
What would my life be like today if even one of these things had been different?
These are thoughts I have on occasion. Typically, I’ll go down this path when I’m feeling a little sorry for myself or things are just generally not going well. That’s not really the case at this moment, though, because what currently brings on such mental meanderings is that I’m wondering how it is that I ended up here. After 37 years an Oregonian, here I am, all of a sudden, a Californian.
I guess the most terrible thing that’s going on right now is that I’m missing “home.”
I was on the phone yesterday with a friend who was, herself, 19 years an Oregonian — and has just moved to Pennsylvania to take on a new job. At the other end of the line I heard her teenage daughter come into the room and ask who she was talking to, to which she replied, “my friend Jim, in California.”
Jim. In California.
How weird to hear those words.
How could this possibly be?
Earlier this year I was a finalist for a position that would have landed me in one of my favorite little college towns on the planet: Corvallis, Oregon. From the moment I discovered the announcement, I pictured myself there, living back in Corvallis: my home for a full twenty years (1970-90).
What if I’d gotten that job?
I guess in a parallel universe, I wowed them at the interview and ended up there. But in this version of reality, I experienced another outcome: needing to move on from the rejection and continue with the interviews. I subsequently traveled to places like Burlington, Vermont; Palm Desert, California; Vancouver, Washington; and Kentfield, California…ending up with the job offer that landed me in my current location.
So here I am: now a Bay Area Golden Stater…wondering what life has in store for me in this place…and having an ache in my heart for a land I call home.
If you’ve been checking in here and wondering what’s up, it’s pretty much the same ol’ same ol’…I’m still spending an incredible amount of time and energy devoted to the job search (…and I don’t have nearly enough of those commodities to devote to photography, writing & blogging!). There is a little time to wander around during my travels, though, and I took this photo (I like the curve) while up in Portland last Monday. Even though Mt. Tabor was not exactly in the neighborhood of my hotel or interview, I still made some space on a balmy Monday evening to take a stroll around one of my favorite Portland parks.
One of the “time-out” activities I did this weekend was to watch the DVD entitled “The Secret.” In case you haven’t heard of this production, it’s one of the latest vehicles for promoting the new-agey kind of belief system (the “law of attraction”) that “like attracts like” or “thoughts become things.”
I’m a big fan of the First Amendment. So finally, after a lifetime of thinking about it, last year I sent in my money to the ACLU and became a card-carrying member. Actually, it wasn’t long after I wrote a blog entry here entitled “Freedom of Speech” that I decided to sign up.
The reason I mention this now is that, quite recently, the topic of free speech entered my life as it pertains to this website. To wit, I have received the feedback that I might want to re-think my decision to discuss my job-search activities on these pages.
Upon hearing this person’s opinion, I admit to feeling mildly embarrassed…and well as somewhat stunned by the unexpected criticism. My initial reaction was to think “ohmygod, I must be f%*#ing up!” I also began wondering if I was, perhaps, unintentionally sabotaging my search for a new position. I immediately reacted to this individual’s viewpoint by un-publishing several recent posts that mentioned my job hunt and some experiences I had had during my travels.
However, in the past few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about my reactivity, and have re-read (several times) the posts I am now hiding from view. And, you know what? I actually think they’re pretty harmless. In these entries, I have talked mostly about myself (which is, after all, what I do here), about the exhausting nature and uncertainty of the job-search process (this is a secret?), and offered up some personal observations of events that have happened while I’ve been on the road.
IMHO, I’ve not harmed any person or organization. And, when I’ve tried to have a little fun by talking about the peculiarity of some things I’ve encountered along the way, I’ve taken care to leave unidentified the person(s) or group(s) involved.
It was quite some time ago now (in “First Do No Harm”) that I addressed the whole area of blogger ethics, examining my own behavior and motivations in publishing this work. At that time I specifically discussed my personal philosophy, including “ …[having] no outright intention of embarrassing, attacking, angering or hurting” anyone. And, really, let me reiterate: I certainly have no agenda to offend, attack or harm anybody here, including myself.
I hope that you, having found your way to this obscure little corner of virtual reality, will remain open-minded enough to allow me this minor self-indulgence (existing wholly apart from my professional existence) called TechnoMonk’s Musings.
Update on June 8, 2007:
After conscientiously re-examining this whole freedom-of-speech issue, I’ve decided to publish again the handful of posts I had hidden in reaction to a reader’s comment. So, if you browse this blog now, you’ll be able to read my rather benign writings on the topic of my job search.
Yesterday, I took a quick, one-day (interview) trip to San Francisco. This involved driving up to the Eugene airport in the morning and then boarding one of United Airline’s small Canadair jets. (And doing the reverse process in the evening, of course.) As I was waiting in the terminal before the trip down, I was doing what I usually do at such times: scoping out the other people in the seating area, wondering why they’re all going where I’m going, and musing about who I’ll be sitting next to (or near) during the flight.
As I was engaged in this speculation, I observed an undeniably-obese woman walking, very slowly, with more of a waddle actually, in my direction. Now, such a sighting is not all that unusual these days, what with our national “obesity epidemic,” but the thing that really attracted my attention was that this individual was coughing with an intensity that I can only describe, with any degree of accuracy at all, as a “death rattle.” It was very deep and pretty scary. As she sat down, fairly close to me, I immediately got up and relocated to a point far-away. Not in my breathing space you don’t, I thought.
Shortly after I moved, I noticed at least three other people get up and use the same avoidance tactic. Let me tell you, this person was having some serious issues, and it was no big secret to anyone even remotely in her vicinity.
It wasn’t long after I had resituated myself, though, that I noticed she had activated a nebulizer, right there in the waiting area, and was attempting to inhale all the medicated steam she could get. Periodically, however, she was forced to remove the mouthpiece portion to engage in yet another coughing jag. Yes, serious, serious stuff going on here.
Just my luck, I thought, that she’ll end up in the seat next to me. (Which would be particularly ironic since I had, at check-in, changed my seat assignment to one at the front of the plane.) Really, I wondered, what would I do if that happened? Would I just sit there, as I had during one trip last spring, when I found myself on a cross-country flight seated next to a woman who reported to me she was very ill and had a temperature of 102? Tell me, what is there to do in these situations where you’re basically trapped and at the mercy of someone who doesn’t have the sense to stay home and not infect the rest of the world?
The moment of truth came when it was time to board the plane. I noticed that she had put away her nubulizer and was standing at the front of the line, perhaps seeking priority-boarding due to her disability. I was far back in the line, in no hurry, having a first-row seat waiting for me. When I got there, it didn’t take long to scan the territory…and to discover that, yes, there she was, directly behind me.
Great. She’ll be hacking the entire trip, spewing her germs directly my way. Yuck. What miserable luck.
But, actually, it wasn’t too long before I started thinking that perhaps I was about to catch a break this time around: for apparently the nebulizer had worked some magic, and she was not coughing any more. Maybe it’ll stay this way? (I asked myself. I hoped to myself.) I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, I decided.
Eventually, after we were in the air, she ended up having a rather extended conversation with the gentleman next to her, and I learned (is this eavesdropping? – how could I NOT have heard this?) that she was a severe asthmatic, that her body had picked this totally inopportune time to have an attack, and that she was quite embarrassed at having had to use the nebulizer right there in the airport. Fortunately for her, the man, a stranger, was totally sympathetic and supported her decision to do whatever she needed to do to take care of herself.
Which is exactly what she needed to hear. What a great thing it was that he was there to say it.
So I, of course, started to examine the assumptions I had made and found that my entire process was really, in all honesty, not very attractive. In this case, I had leapt right into a wholly-narcissistic judgment mode, not really trying to understand at all the suffering that had been going on, right there in front of me. From what I could overhear, she seemed like a rather decent human being, caught in a really tough spot by needing to travel with this particular (probably not-contagious) ailment.
Ahhhh…appearances, and the stories we make up in our heads. They aren’t really “the truth,” are they?
