Older and Wiser?

but i'm going to say it anyway. i am so sorry to hear that kanuck. that is so sad. my love to you and you family. you and i may 'only' be online fellows, but i do count you as a friend, so i give you my condolences.

40 years is a long time. wow. i can see how such a loss and change in your life can make you ponder the woes of aging.

i'm into middle age but i feel the old age pull with regard to my parents. they are not 'old' by todays standards, but at the same time they are old people. they have numerous health woes between them but its all under control. but i worry, a lot, about when/if something happens to knock them for six. one fall, and that could mean a wheelchair, a old folks home. i worry about dememtia. a few friends have parents they care/cared for. one friend only lost her mum a month ago. she had alzheimers and was stuck on a loop with old stories and memories. yet curiously she was in good physical health. her body seemed to suddenly pack up, and given she was in her 90's it sort of seems a blessing, compared to some of the horrible situation other friend parents have been in.

my parents have been together for 50 years. i can't imagine if one needed care enough to have to go to a home and the other left behind.

aging is a weird thing. you don't feel old, then suddenly you are.

keep bugging us! 'they' say learning new things keeps the brain healthy. certainly its so easy to get stuck in a rut of what we know and what we do.

thus speaks the person who thinks starting a new netflix show counts as 'new stuff'.

hmm.

...but not, of course, just yet.

There's the novel. Much sailing: and, not least, two grandkids to startle.

kanuck, I am genuinely sorry for your loss. I'm not going to write anything else at the moment, as I am currently under the influence of Guinness Extra. There is more that I can write, for sure, just not now - I shall return to this thread.

Ah age 57, I remember way back then when I had sufficient ambition and drive to continue to improve what was then a largely wild 30 ares of bush where I had just completed building my own house. Now some 15 years later I have difficulty finding the ambition to simply maintain the trails and upkeep the house and workshop, looking back I wonder where I found the drive to design and build a whole house almost entirely with my own labor. At the time the biggest driver of that effort was the need to do 'everything with nothing' given the distinct limit of funds available, that and a winter living in a camper trailer as we worked to get the project 'out of the ground'. Such thing tend to focus the mind on the important things …. food, shelter, heat and naturally $$$$ .

I was, and am, so proud of what we accomplished in just a couple of years in 99 – 2000, there is little doubt that I had the right incentive, opportunity, knowledge and physical ability at the right time and place after a number of years of seeking such to come together. We never know what life is going to bring us and looking back now at the highlight of more than 70 years on this ball of dirt I see that the house that I now sit in was one of the major accomplishments over those years. There were a few others some of which I will briefly share with you...

Way back in the 60s I trained as an electrician and spent many hours peddling behind the local tradesman similarly mounted as we made our way to whatever job we were assigned, me with Frank's tools strapped to the carrier on back. Ah the joy when it was a big job that required the Eastern Electricity van to transport materials (and us) to the site.....

By the early 70s I had learned much, become licensed and emigrated to Canada where as an electrical 'service' technician I daily came across and defeated many technical challenges by the time honored tradition of learning by doing. Such learning method has stood me in good stead over the years for even with minimal formal training my ability to learn on the job has left me with an almost unequaled range of basic electrical, plumbing, carpentry, construction and design abilities.

I will leave my journey through life here for now and return to the saga later when the urge to share strikes again.

"learning while doing"... yes, that describes much of what I do these days. Being a computer-type IT person by trade*, I know little or nothing of what might be classed 'manual' labour. I did wood work at school when I was 12 (as I recall, it was actually called 'manual' too!) but other than that, I really didn't know one end of a spanner/chisel from another. So the renovation work I've done here (nothing on Kanuck's scale I hasten to add) has all been very much learning on the job - with all the inherent joys and frustrations that brings.

Some of those frustrations (to pick up on the earlier theme) being due to age; I'm not quite as flexible as I once was, not quite as strong and certainly not quite as mentally agile. Ageing has undoubtedly slowed me and whilst it's far from debilitating at this point, I do notice it happening.


(*yes, IT was a 'trade' for me in the 80s. Much akin to being an electrician or plumber in the way I worked. I was self-employed and writing/fixing software for small businesses, invariably manufacturing. As the 2000s approached and small businesses could buy 'off-the-shelf' software for their needs, my much enjoyed niche kinda shrivelled. I then found work in the finance and related sectors - banking, insurance, credit - but still in IT. The money might have been better but it sucked the life out of me. I missed my visits to the UK's trading estates where the majority of my then clients were, and I was now stuck, be-tied and be-suited, in faceless offices - where the only thing that ever changed were the partitions that divided the 'work spaces' - and those changed according to fashion and fad, employers could say they 'cared' and where 'improving the work environment' but the job itself - that sucked as ever. Sorry, I'm getting a little off-topic...)

Indeed!

At the risk of going so far off topic as to bore everyone else (but I simply had to pick up on your comment as it had instantly taken me back to the 80s!) the computer memory limitations back then were in themselves something that made you think hard about how you'd approach a task. Maybe it even taught you good coding, I don't know.  It certainly taught you, um, 'efficiency' shall we say. But, yes, as the years rolled on and computers rapidly became more powerful, you had (comparatively) oceans of memory to play with, and then to the point where it ceased being a consideration at all. Today's programmers don't even need to think about it, they'd freak at only having 256k of addressable memory! Ah, those were the days!

I still keep my hand in with coding, writing noddy little scripts for this and that, but my days of serious code development have long gone. 

Edit: something else that I'm reminded of; I had a coding pad. I didn't write a line of code on the computer until I'd sketched out (even if only in shorthand pseudo-code) what I was going to do. We also had a program length limitation (again that magical 256k) so that again forced a discipline. There were also program library size limitations, so you'd write parameter driven re-usable code where possible to keep within the space limitation. Such limitations are effectively absent now and the popular image you see of geeky coders on TV/films these days is off them plonking themselves down at the terminal and bashing out lines of code with no apparent concern for memory or disk space. Whilst that is a media characterisation, it also has some truth to it! Times have (and do) change, that's for real.

“But age IS a thing. I formerly did all my own car maintenance,.....”
Its a thing alright, just not sure at this point in my life what kinda 'thing' it is, OLD age is even more of a thing as I am now finding out, in my case the old bones all still work but much more slowly and with greater repercussions if over used , hell if used at all for anything even slightly strenuous. As mentioned previously I have always been a hands on fix it myself kinda fellow, and yes that included car repairs up to and including engine transplants ….no longer, its not so much that I cant do it as I no longer want or need to do it, the process goes something like 'I should......' 'Ah fk it' !!
Fortunately I have an adult son at home who has inherited my affinity for all thing mechanical and electrical so that now when things fail its 'Mike can you …....' as I sit in my chair giving out of date advice! I guess age does have SOME advantages.....

I've just had a few days in Clermont-Ferrand. Why is that relevant here? Well, as I walked around exploring, the effects of ageing once again became apparent. As a younger man, I could pound the pavements for hour after hour and suffer no ill-effects. Not so now. Not only aches (feet, legs and back) but also the need to have more frequents breaks for coffee etc. In my 20s, I would sleep off the limb tiredness and repeat the process the next day. Now, each new stride weighs heavily as the tiredness accumulates until a complete rest day is required.

On the plus side, and age related I guess, we stayed in a cheap and cheerful 2 star hotel (and it was cheerful!) This was the sort of the thing I used to do in my youth (I was never a hostel person) but as I got older, I tended to begin to favour the familiarity of generic but faceless chain hotels (Ibis and the like) Characterless, yes, but known quantities each and every one. And so it was a fond memory revisited to be staying somewhere again where floors creaked and water pipes shuddered, where doors and windows had slight warps from age and no longer cleanly fit their frames. Age again showing its pluses and minuses; things may not work as they once did but at least they were of themselves.

I've been thinking about Kanuck's words too. It struck me that he's experiencing ageing in a different way to me; Kanuck's is more like a lack of motivation, or a sadness due to that lack. I experience ageing more like a frustration, a frustration that my abilities have diminished. I generally find my motivation for things (such that it ever was) is still there. Indeed, still having the motivation is exactly what is leading me to discover that my abilities are going. So for me, at this stage in my life, ageing is experienced as a frustration - that I can't do something any more. Maybe our age difference accounts for the difference of experience, maybe the older and wiser Kanuck has become aware of his physical capabilities and happily lives with them without frustration, but feels the loss of the desire to do the things he used to? I don't know but the difference in the way we talk of ageing does interest me.

Isolation is recognised as a big problem here in France. These days, it's part of the postie's role to spend a bit of time just chatting to those that live on their own. It's not just the elderly either but predominantly. Nor is it just rural but, again, predominantly. So Kanuck you fall well and truly into that 'predominantly' category. Not that that'll be of any consolation to you of course. It's dreadful how people become forgotten these days.

My wife's mother is in a retirement home in Llanelli, cared for by those who (hopefully) love their jobs and get a sense of fulfilment from. They're not paid well, of course, and we (i.e. society) takes advantage of them. Anyways, my wife's mother once said, as she was sat in her armchair in the common lounge, "what use am I?" It's very hard to respond to that because, you know exactly what she means. The question is though, I think, not framed correctly. It's not a matter of what 'use' she is but how she feels about herself.

Besides, at it's most cynically specific, she IS of use. Her very presence in that home is providing employment to carers, keeping a business going, she's spending her savings and contributing to the economy. But who wants to be defined as useful in that way? Hardly fulfilling. So I reckon you define your own 'use'.

I've become quite adept at amusing myself for no other purpose than amusing myself. I'm quite 'anal' I suppose (others might say) because I'm quite a slow and tidy worker. I like to clean up in stages. Do a bit, clean up. Do another bit, clean up. It makes for longer tasks certainly but it's a means to manage my anxieties and give myself a sense of knowing what I'm doing, of being in control. I like being active (and it's better for me) but experience has taught me that I can't handle pressure and I will pressure myself if I think too much about the fact I don't really know what I'm doing. I have to tell myself that I'm learning on the job (as we referred to before) and by slowing myself down, I can handle the anxiety that I might otherwise feel.

Yes, others would definitely work more quickly but I tell myself that time is something I have (and money isn't) so my 'use' is defined as 'saving money'. But in truth, it's not really about saving money, not primarily anyway; it's about keeping myself occupied and in good health (mentally mainly) Just doing something, doing anything really, keeps me relatively happy.

i'm sorry you're feeling so low kanuck. it does seem like maybe you need a project with a deadline?

i've noticed in some cities in the uk (not where i live) there are volunteer groups who do simple electronic or engineer or DIY types repairs for local people, or assist workshops or training groups and the such. if you've got the mad skills maybe you can loan them out to people and socialise and put the world to rights in the process?


just a thought.

Shame that you could not get something going Kanuck. There is an abundance of "Mens sheds" springing up here for exactly type of person. The retired male with skills. Chaps get together and chat no doubt with much tea and biscuits and put their skills to the test fixing items brought to them by the public. The chaps have therefore formed their own community support group for those with time to spare or at a loose end. The bereaved find new friends and company and it all seems such a great idea. That would be so good for any community and you have so many skills Kanuck it could be a huge success.

Define 'normal' but, to answer the question, completely normal.

I share the desire to want to do something, achieve something (anything!) before I consign myself to compost. I think we all ponder our achievements (or lack thereof) as we get older. And therein lies a problem.

People have probably heard the '1000 hours' theory on becoming an expert. That is how long it's reckoned to take to master any skill to the point of sublimity. That equates to roughly 25 to 30 years.... yep, 25 to 30 YEARS! I simply haven't got the time left to become good at anything so I'd have to best settle for mediocrity (at best) if I decided to do something new.

So I'm toying with the notion of trying to accept that this is my lot, as good as it gets. From here on in, it'd be simple pleasures and passing the time doing whatever brings a smile to my face.

On which subject, the cranes have been flying overhead again on their way south to warmer climes. It really is a wonderful sight and sound. When I witness it, I really do feel that it's pretty much all I need to keep me from going dolally.