PREFACE

It is widely believed that with age comes wisdom. Perhaps not wisdom in an absolute sense, but increased wisdom relative to the amount of wisdom one has as a younger person. Such wisdom, it is felt, provides a small balance to the loss of so many other characteristics we possess as a younger person.

Just recently, I reached the milestone called 65. While there is clearly nothing either more wondrous nor more sinister than reaching any other birthday, there is much that tells us age 65 is of singular importance, not the least of which is our eligibility for Medicare. On the occasion of my 65th birthday, however, I felt, not wise, but uncertain about so many things. I looked about for the wisdom I have allegedly gained over the years, but found I could not spot an altogether significant amount. Perhaps, I reasoned, I have simply not done the self-assessment that would lead me, or any other rational person, to recognize the wisdom which some hold to be a birthright.

So I have decided to explore my thinking a bit, across a variety of issues and ideas, to see if I do possess any age-related wisdom, or if I have accumulated experiences, events, ideas that have come to define my life, but that cannot in any reasonable form constitute the type and amount of wisdom we’ve come to expect, or at least hope for, as we age.

My explorations will take the form of a number of essays, In which I seek to describe and explain what I think about some issues of the day. I like essays. They represent to me a meld of scholarship, analysis, and speculation. An interesting essay to me is one in which the author has identified an issue, idea, or problem worth thinking about, has prospected the available narratives about the issue, and has drawn some conclusions that represent the intersection of the author’s life experiences with the observations of others who may have explored the same intellectual or emotional turf before.

Why go through this exercise? I’ve several reasons for pursuing this project. The first is entirely ego-centric: the crafting of essays seems to me to be a means of getting my thoughts in order, about some things that seem important in the scheme of things. I find as I have aged that I have a significant number of untethered thoughts residing in various parts of my brain (I think), and I would like to see if I can put these thoughts into something a tad more coherent. Not that I object in principle to random thoughts roaming about in my head; but I have always been an organizer of sorts, so this project seems a natural extension of inclinations in my life.

It is my hope that these essays will be of interest or comfort to others approaching or having just past the 65 marker. Demographic statistics suggest there will be a lot of us, in fact an unprecedented bulge in age profiles. There are times and situations in which reading the perspective of others, on some ideas of mutual interest, stimulates the mind, and helps us make sense of our own world. I do not pretend, nor assume, that the essays contained herein will mean something to everyone post-65; the variation in the human species is just too great to imagine anything appeals to everyone. But perhaps there are some readers who will find this effort interesting, and will join in the building of this blog.

And finally, I want to write to my children and grandchildren. I’d like them to know what their father or grandfather thought about things at a point in his life. The idea, I guess, is to try to share what passes as wisdom, or at least reflection, on to next generations. I do this not because I am a model to be emulated, but rather a person who reached an age to reflect on things, for whatever those reflections are worth to those in the extended family who follow. My wife, Alice Dodd, does this kind of thing in her own way: she composes memoirs about her experiences and her thoughts. In fact, she teaches others the skills needed to write such memoirs. I suspect she and I are doing much the same thing, using different vehicles, but wishing to describe and think about the things that have mattered over the years. I’ve read many of her memoirs, and find them fascinating. As we met and married later in life, there is much about her I don’t know, much she has experienced that I was not a party to. The memoirs are invaluable to me in learning who my wife is. Maybe our children will learn a bit more about who we are (and were) if they read our essays and our memoirs. I hope so.