Baby Boomers: Citizens Not Seniors

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.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Yogi Berra

Update(s) on November 24, 2007:

I just thought you might like to know…

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.

Another note…

I have also been mentioned on The Platinum Years Network blog: first here, then here.

The Society for HandHeld Hushing (SHHH!)

As far back as July 2006 I started talking about my aversion to noise, particularly the annoying cell-phone-user variety. I continually ask myself the question: where do I have to go, what, dear god, do I have to do, to get away from these inconsiderate, loudmouth assholes?

I’m sick. I’m tired. I’m totally frazzled with the “cell-phone voice” that seems to be everywhere. For example, say I’m in the local Starbucks (as I was just today), quietly sipping my cup of tea and reading a book, with the normal background hum of voices and activity. Then, a person a table or two away takes or makes a call, and before I even look up to confirm, I know that voice. Geez, it’s somebody talking on their damn phone. Of course it is. It’s happening all around us! Does she really think I care if she’s running late? Or that he’s hungover? Or that her sister is sick? Or that her husband-boyfriend-significant-other doesn’t “get” her? Or that his college won the big game yesterday? Or that, woe is me, the Dow lost 130 points last week? Or that she thinks “like, you know, whatever…”?

Tell me: how could I possibly give a rat’s ass?!

Well, I don’t.

But, enter: HOPE.

I recently discovered what I think is a “must-have” piece of modern technology: the cell-phone jammer. In a newspaper article last week entitled “Cell-Phone Jammers Can Zap All The Yap,” I learned of these wondrous little (often extremely small and portable) devices. I don’t need to go into how these things actually work, since, if you’re interested, you can read up on that yourself. Suffice it to say that, for not much money, you too can own a gadget that can zap the signal of cell phones in your immediate vicinity.

Think of yourself on a bus or commuter train, in the doctor’s waiting room, in the theatre, or, like me, in the coffee shop: and having actual control over the airspace! You just push a button and, whammo! …instant impotence (technologically speaking) for that useless, harebrained cell-phone user!

HA!

Of course, there happens to be a down side, as use of these miracle tools just happens to be against the law. Alas, cell-phone jamming is covered under the Communications Act of 1934, which prohibits us from “willfully or maliciously interfering with the radio communications of any station licensed or authorized” to operate. In fact, the “manufacture, importation, sale or offer for sale, including advertising, of devices designed to block or jam wireless transmissions is prohibited” as well.

Dang!

So, given this, of course I’m not advocating that you go out and buy one of these things. It just wouldn’t be right, would it? I would never, ever endorse any kind of illegal activity here on my website. That would be terrible of me!

So, how about if I suggest an alternative that IS totally legal?

It just so happens that I’ve discovered another way to start fighting back. I’ve become aware of a method that is neither illegal nor surreptitious, but, rather, totally above-board…and just may win the hearts and minds of those around you.

I suggest you go to the website introducing you to the (unfortunately fictional) Society for HandHeld Hushing (SHHH!). Once there, you will find a pdf file which you can download and print out that will furnish you with some little “business cards” you can cut up and hand to those loudmouths on cell phones.

Imagine yourself, if you will, handing a modestly-sized nicely-printed card to someone stating that:

The Rest of Us DON’T CARE What He Said To You.

or

The World Is A Noisy Place. You Aren’t Helping Things.

or

Just so you know: EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS BEING FORCE TO LISTEN TO YOUR CONVERSATION.

or

Dear Cell Phone User: We are aware that your ongoing conversation with (fill in the blank) is very important to you, but we thought you’d like to know that it doesn’t interest us in the least. In fact, your babbling disregard for others is more than a little annoying.

or, simply:

SHHH!

Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it? …the silence, that is.

Soundtrack Suggestion

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

(“The Sounds of Silence” – Simon & Garfunkel)

Maximum Multiplicity

On an episode of the TV program Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) I watched recently, Larry David took off on one of his famous stream-of-consciousness digressions – this time about his preference and tendency to use stalls, rather than urinals, when visiting public restrooms.

Interestingly enough (or maybe not), his admission stimulated some electrical impulses and activity in my warped brain that led me to think of Hund’s Rule of Maximum Multiplicity – a topic you must remember from general chemistry class. Of course, this postulate is often referred to as “the bus-seat rule.”

Hund’s Rule describes the process of populating atomic orbitals with electrons – specifically the way those electrons are arranged – as atomic number increases. Quite simply, the rule stipulates that if two electrons have two spaces (i.e., orbitals) to occupy, then they would rather occupy one orbital each rather than “pair up” and occupy just one orbital.

So, for example, take the case of the element Boron which has three “p” orbitals but just one electron in that particular energy level. For argument’s sake, let’s say that that lone electron occupies the p(x) orbital. The next element on the periodic table, Carbon, has the same number of p orbitals (but one more electron than Boron) with one electron in each of the p(x) and p(y) orbitals. And Nitrogen, the next element in line, has three electrons in this energy level, one in each of the p(x), p(y), and p(z) orbitals. Can you visualize this at all? Electrons are distributing themselves among the p orbitals much as passengers on a bus: nobody sits next to someone else unless and until they really have to. So, in the case of Oxygen, yet the next element under consideration, the configuration would have two electrons in p(x) and one each in the other two orbitals. (The two electrons in p(x) are said to be a “lone pair.”)

So, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this? (If you’re still reading, that is). What does Larry David’s use of stalls have to do with Hund’s Rule and electrons?

Well, actually, hardly anything. It’s just that I’ve been thinking about bathroom behavior myself (remember I’m talkin’ Larry David not Larry Craig kinda stuff here!)…given that last summer, in some of the buildings on campus, new urinals were installed. Our urinals are supposedly the latest in “green” technology – as they are waterless devices that don’t use H2O to flush with. They actually don’t flush: all in all, not a bad idea to conserve water, and the campus is making points in the community for its conservation efforts.

The thing is, the urinals have been installed with no privacy dividers between them. When you’re standing there doing your business, it’s sort of like lining up at a public trough. And, for me, that’s not the most comfortable situation in the world. What’s the deal here, anyway? We’re already conserving 2.5 million gallons of water per year (!) …do we really have to give up our privacy rights too?

So: this is where the bus-seat rule comes into play. With no dividers between the urinals (hence no privacy) and, I think, many of us modern men having similar reservations about the public-trough concept, what we do is situate ourselves as far apart as possible when we’re in the restroom doing our thing. For example, I’ll walk in and I’m the only one in there. I’ll take the urinal that’s next to the partition separating the sink and the urinal sections. The next guy comes in and will take the urinal that’s tenth (out of ten) in line…around the corner a little bit. If a third person comes in, he’ll take one of the urinals approximately midway between us. And so on.

Given this, doesn’t it seem that our bathroom behavior is a little like seating on a bus or electrons in orbitals? Or, I guess, even other types of human behavior. For example, a blogger named Vishy, in a post from early 2005, observed that Hund’s Rule can also apply to seating ourselves in a cafeteria or taking the elevator.

Not that keeping your distance from others is such a bad thing. Sometimes there are certain activities that are just plain better when performed alone. Hund tells us that the pairing of electrons is an unfavorable process where energy must be expended in order to make it occur. I suggest that the closeness of humans, in some situations, is not the greatest of things either… with there being energetic, emotional and social barriers to making it (i.e., the closeness) happen.

Me? I support the practice of privacy dividers in our public restrooms or, in their absence, maximum multiplicity.

Five Point Six

There I was, last Tuesday night (October 30). Minding my own business, at home. Vegging out on my sofa, watching TV.

It was a little after 8:00 p.m. (the cable box said exactly 8:05) and The Daily Show’s nightly re-run (of the previous evening’s broadcast) had just begun.

I vaguely remember that I was laughing out loud at something when: HOLY SHIT!

All of sudden it happened. It seemed as if I were, for a moment there, floating above my sofa. As if some immense cosmic force had picked me up with giant invisible hands and was joking around, having its way with me. The whole experience was a little bewildering, a lot frightening, and, weirdly, somewhat exciting.

Unlike the last time (which was actually my first time) I found myself in an earthquake situation, when I didn’t know exactly what was going on…this time there was no mistaking things: this was an earthquake! Holy craperino (I thought…), this is amazing! (And: I just hope I live through this!)

I was picked up and shaken once, then it seemed if as if there were a slight hesitation; subsequently I found myself being shaken again, even more vigorously the second time. The entire experience lasted only a few seconds, I suppose (quite literally, time seemed suspended), but that was enough for my thought processes (i.e, panic) to kick in and wonder if the whole apartment was going to detach from the building and slide down the cliff: with me scratching and clawing the entire way. To my ultimate, very painful, demise.

Then things stopped. Just. Stopped. The Daily Show continued on. The world switched back to normal, at least in my neighborhood. I continued to think and wonder: where was the epicenter? How far away was it? What must it have been like to be right ON TOP? How big was this thing, anyway?

Here’s the deal: news reports of the event listed it as a 5.6 quake, with the epicenter five miles northeast of the Alum Rock neighborhood of San Jose, along the Calaveras Fault. (I’m not exactly sure how far that is from me…but I suspect it’s at least 50 miles.) This temblor just happens to be the largest one to hit the Bay Area since the (6.9-magnitude) Loma Prieta disaster in 1989. (I safely followed news reports of that one from home on October 17…as I was watching, on TV in Corvallis, Oregon, the third game of the World Series.)

Just so you know: I’m keeping score. My arrival in the Bay Area was greeted by a 4.2 quake on July 20…just 18 days after I moved here. (It seems like only yesterday!) And, here I am again…this time experiencing the largest shaker since 1989. How (NOT!) lucky can I get?

One of the reports of Tuesday’s quake indicated that “the fault ruptured at a depth of 5.7 miles and the shaking was felt as far north as Eugene, Oregon.”

Well, good. I really wouldn’t want to have all the fun to myself. So, tell me: did any of my fine friends in the Great State of Oregon feel this thing, too?

Soundtrack Suggestion

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I just lose control
Down to my very soul
I get a hot and cold all over
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down,
Tumbling down, tumbling down...

(“I Feel the Earth Move” – Carole King)

Aches and Pains

The last entry was about my rather ambitious level of physical activity during the weekend. Activity that came with a price. Silly me! As it turns out, there can be too much of a good thing. Since then, I’ve been dealing with the fallout from those outings. Oh, woe is me; my aches and pains have flared up.

Which has me asking, as always: what’s the deal with my body?

The medical establishment clearly does not have it together when it comes to understanding, diagnosing and treating this mysterious affliction called fibromyalgia. Theories about this disease (or is it a syndrome — who knows?) abound.

Right after the first medical opinion came in suggesting that fibromyalgia was the label for my condition, one of the first reference works I found was Fibromyalgia and Chronic Myofascial Pain (Starylanyl & Copeland, 2001). This book became the starting point in my search for answers to what ails this aging shell. The authors state that they “believe that there is often an initiating event that activates biochemical changes, causing a cascade of symptoms” (p. 11). There are many statements throughout the text that fibromyalgia “may be due to this” or “may be due to that.” And there is an incomprehensible preoccupation with the distinction between tender points and trigger points and their role in fibromyalgia and myofascial pain. The book is subtitled “A Survival Manual,” and that’s exactly what it is: a blueprint for living with chronic pain.

In an ambitious 2006 book (What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia), authors R. Paul St. Amand, M.D., and Claudia Craig Marek postulate their theory of “inadequate energy as the cause of fibromyalgia” (p. 32). They suggest that the bodies of sufferers do not produce enough ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which they label as the “currency of energy” (p. 31) in our cells. They claim to have “stumbled upon the treatment for fibromyalgia quite by accident” (p. 40). And that treatment, they say, is a substance called guaifenesin (an expectorant drug, often present in cough and cold remedies, and also available in pill form as a supplement).

In an equally-impressive analysis and argument, Dr. David Dryland (of Ashland, Oregon), just this year (2007), published The Fibromyalgia Solution. His hypothesis is that fibromyalgia victims suffer from fight-or-flight fatigue (an ubiquitous condition of modern living), which leads to sleep deprivation and a diminished supply of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In terms of possible treatment implications, Dryland suggests that two dopamine drugs (originally prescribed for Parkinson’s disease and/or restless-leg syndrome) are likely candidates to provide relief for many. These drugs go by the names of Mirapex and Requip.

What is going on here? Well, what I’ve just provided is a brief list of examples demonstrating that fibromyalgia remains a total mystery not only to me but to the entire medical world. And those of us who suffer with this illness, or think we do, are left to go from doctor to doctor, or one alternative practitioner to another, in order to find some relief from our ever-present pain.

This last week, in the space of three days, I revisited my Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and my body-work therapist. They are both very skillful and helpful in my quest for pain relief. I will keep seeking them out, especially when I’m in the kind of state I find myself in now. However, of all the approaches I’ve tried, in all the experiments I’ve performed on myself, the single most effective remedy I’ve found so far is the element magnesium (in the form of a supplement called Fibroplex.) I discovered this particular miracle because of an off-hand remark made last winter at a neurofeedback specialist’s office. He said, “Jim, you may want to try some of this” – as he went over to the shelf to pick up a bottle of the product. I purchased it, tried it, and I’ve felt much, much better ever since. Of course, it wasn’t the cure, it’s just the one thing that has made the most difference in my life in years. Since then, I’ve discovered much evidence to suggest that magnesium deficiency is commonly associated with a significant percentage of my current symptoms.

Now, another possibility has come along. A few days ago, good friend “V” in Oregon suggested that I take a look at the latest issue (November 2007) of Scientific American. In a persuasive article (pp. 62-72; the full article is not available online without a subscription) entitled “ Cell Defenses and the Sunshine Vitamin,” researchers Luz E. Tavera-Mendoza and John H. White outline the dangers to a human body without enough Vitamin D.

In short, the authors offer evidence to suggest the possibility of “widespread vitamin D deficiency contributing to a number of serious illnesses” (p. 64). And, as it turns out, fibromyalgia may be one of them. Yes, you guessed it: doing a Google search on the topic turned up several references, among them an article entitled “Vitamin Deficiency Causes Fibromyalgia!”

Who knows. Maybe this is the answer. At any rate, it seems easy enough to check out. I’ve now added 4,000 international units of D3 to my daily regimen of supplements.

I’ll keep you posted.