I Hope I Go to Surf Camp When I'm 80

When I'm not busy ranting about the staggering level of intellectual laziness, if not willful ignorance, among the top Republican contenders for the highest political office in the land and working-over a nice, juicy spitball of a blog post in the hopes that, through the magic of the internet, I might somehow generate enough velocity to send it landing with a splat right between Ms. Bachmann's deranged-looking eyes, I spend my time thinking about other important things, too.  I think about whether it is too late into the Fall to get another pedicure.  (This being Minnesota, there comes a time every year when your toes disappear into sturdy shoes and socks for such a protracted period of time that investing in their polished appearance is as pointless as donning a bikini under thermal underwear.)   I also consider whether my effort at home-baked pie should be aimed at peach or apple.  But, inevitably, my thoughts always roll around to this one:  I hope I go to surf camp when I'm 80.

I think this thought not because I've determined that there is some special kind of enlightenment that can only be achieved by attending surf camp in your 80th year (though that seems pretty plausible), but because such a goal seems highly likely to avoid what I am really concerned about: self-inflicted petrification.  You may think you don't know what I'm talking about, but I assure you that you do.  I'm talking about those people, mostly of the aged variety, but not always, who have steadily relinquished whatever physical and mental flexibility and adaptability they once had in favor of rigid routine and familiarity.  They don't need to spend any time assessing or considering the choices before them because they've already made them before and they know what their answer is.  Their days consist of the same foods, the same schedule, the same TV shows and, most importantly, the same set of "Nos."  "No, I don't like Thai food."  "No, I don't want to travel abroad."  "No, I don't want to try anything new or reconsider my previous conclusions.  I know what I like and I'm just gonna stick with that.  Thanks."

To be certain, the power to pick and choose what you want to do and avoid what you don't want to do is one of the chief benefits of successfully navigating the obstacle course of childhood and adolescence.  If you play your cards right and land an apartment of your own and maybe someday an entire house of your own, the revenge of the long oppressed and misunderstood is soon at hand.  Finally, you don't have to eat the lima beans or pick-up your dirty clothes or even acknowledge the box of moldy, left over pizza from last weekend's kegger that is on the floor in front of the couch.  Or, if you are young, male, and aspiring to ski-bum status for a season in Vail with my younger brother in 1992, you can exercise your collective rights not to take out the garbage, clean the toilet, purchase toilet paper or otherwise employ any of the amenities of modern civilization -- in any way.  (Having personally witnessed these freedom fighters in action, I can tell you that their dedication to their cause was truly overwhelming.) 

But exercising your right to live in health-code violating conditions is just one point along the way.  The journey usually requires that you spend all of your college years and perhaps a good portion of your 20s trying out all kinds of things so that you will know how to best use your newly-minted freedom of choice.  One cannot know whether one is in favor of sushi or against it until one has tried it.  (Although, interestingly and despite the obvious soundness of this logic, my children are evidently gifted with the ability to know in advance, without any direct personal exposure whatsoever, what foods they like and dislike.  Actual tasting and lifting of fork to mouth is not required, as they have passionately assured me on numerous occasions.)  Same goes for short haircuts, golf, and peeing in the woods.  Until one has experienced hair that is too short, the excruciating boredom and frustration that is known as golf, and participated in a camping experience where the bathroom consists of a shovel and a roll of toilet paper, these are open questions.  (For the record, I will take peeing in the woods over either of the other two.)

Ironically, the seeds of self-petrification are actually buried within the process of youthful adventure and exploration.  At first these new worlds are exciting and stimulating, but slowly you start to figure out what causes your hangovers and what gives you gas, and the funneling of inputs gradually begins to narrow.  Out goes the Rum and bell peppers.  Out goes the aerobics class at the gym, any movie that starts after 7pm, staying up to watch Letterman or SNL, and eggs still in their shell and in full possession of their innate cholesterol.  And so the process of evaluation and elimination proceeds until, one day, you find your 80 year-old self in a Denny's in Tampa in your regular booth for dinner at 4pm with half a box of Kleenex tissues conveniently pre-stowed (for ease of access) up the left sleeve of the over-sized cardigan you never take-off, watching Fox News and asking the waiter if the chicken noodle soup is spicy, because there was that one time a few months ago with the new cook who was fond of black pepper and your stomach was out of sorts for days.

I am afraid of becoming this person.  From my current vantage point in the middle of life it seems sad and depressing to consider that there may come a point where the unknown no longer holds any interest.  Where the new, untried, foreign or novel appears more as an irritating inconvenience than an opportunity.  

My fear of becoming this person perhaps borders on the irrational (and let's please avert our eyes from the other contents of the box of irrational fears because therein lie snakes and spiders and more snakes and temperatures below 80 degrees), but I have my reasons. 

First, however, if you are really intent on worrying about your inevitable decline appropriately, as I am, you have to separate out the issues and give each its due.  The threshold issue, of course, is ensuring that you actually live long enough to become truly old.  No sense worrying about what kind of old person you will be if you never trip the wire for social security eligibility.  This is why I have dedicated myself to drinking lots of red wine.  I hear the Mediterranean diet is the way to go in terms of longevity.  (Also, in the name of cultural sensitivity and appreciation, I am learning to swear like an Italian.) 

Assuming that I sufficiently marinate my cells in resveratrol to obtain the same life-extending benefits observed in fruit flies and nematode worms and that I don't find myself on the wrong-end of an argument with the Mob, contemplation of my elderly self then becomes relevant and necessary.  In my case, I happen to have hard evidence that there is reason to worry.  Now, I'm sure there was a set of circumstances that existed at some point that made this seem perfectly logical and reasonable, but I have personally witnessed my mother removing a frozen block of her homemade chili from her luggage (double-bagged, of course) shortly after arriving at my house.   Said brick-bag of frozen chili was then presented to me, without any trace of shame or hesitation.  When I failed to grasp exactly what was happening and apparently so indicated with my facial expression, I was informed that extra time had been available to her so she thought she would cook some chili and bring it along so that we would have dinner all ready to go.   No reason to fuss.  It was easy enough to do . . . .

This is what can happen when you get older.  You can somehow find yourself in a place where cooking, bagging, freezing and transporting chili from Los Angeles to Minneapolis via commercial air travel seems like a perfectly good idea.  From there, one has to believe it is just a few short steps to Bingo Night and an obsession with ensuring you will never be far from a Kleenex when you need one.

But no one starts out toting around bags of frozen chili or eating dinner at 4pm or wearing dark socks with shorts.  It just sort of sneaks up on you, one little bit at a time.  While, on the one hand, I have deep respect for the "screw 'em if they can't take a joke" frame of mind, in my experience, none of these people are joking.  They are all deadly serious.  (And this isn't born of ageism.  Rather, it's just simple math that the longer one has to hold-out against the comforts of complacency and the forces of inertia, the higher the odds that one will eventually buckle and give in.)

When I encounter people who seem to have closed and bolted shut the main entrance doors to further life experience, I always find myself wishing I could just give them a little sip of what they are missing.  "Here, have just a sip," I would say, and they would drink the magic elixir slowly and tentatively and then suddenly glimpse breathtaking new vistas of knowledge and possibility.  I imagine these sips presented in the small plastic "cups" that accompany children's liquid medicine.   You know, the clear, thimble-like caps that overlay the true cap of the Children's Tylenol.  And just as one often has to coax a child to drink even the smallest amount of syrupy relief, one would gently coax the consumption of new experience one tiny sip at a time.   If only this were a real thing.   Just think how fun it would be.  "Here, try this one.  It's riding a motorcycle across the desert."  Or, "I'm going to try this one.  It says it is what it feels like to ride a rocket into outer space."  Gulp.  "Huh.  Tastes like chicken."

I like to think about what I would choose to sip, if I could.  I generally choose experiences that are otherwise impossible for me to have or replicate on my own.  For example, I would love to know what it felt like to be Michael Jordan at his prime.  To have such a special relationship with gravity and a basketball net that you could do things no one else had done before.  To be able to take off from the foul line and dunk a basketball.  Or to find out what it is like to race down a snow covered mountain like Lindsey Vonn or have a mind that works like Douglas Adams'. 

Of course, if such an elixir existed, it likely wouldn't be limited to experiences that are triumphant or happy or entertaining.  What if you could know what it feels like to be wrongly convicted and on death row, or to have been in a Nazi prison camp, or to be slowly starving in Somalia?  What if you could experience what it is like to be taken down by ALS, like my father-in-law was, or to be bullied to the point of suicide, or to be jailed for refusing to sit in the back of the bus?  Thankfully, my concocted elixir doesn't really exist and we aren't faced with the choice of whether to sip those experiences and feel them as if they were our own.

But of course, in actuality we make similar choices all the time.  Through books and movies and the willingness to taste food whose flavor profile consists of more than salt, pepper and cheese, we can choose to get at least a little bit closer to the realities experienced by others and thereby perhaps a fuller understanding of the world we share.  We can read accounts of life inside Nazi Germany, or through news sources track the famine currently afflicting the Horn of Africa, or even channel some fraction of the joy of Michael Jordan flying through the air via YouTube highlights and television specials. We just have to choose to take those sips.

A good friend of mine used to employ a very effective drinking game back in our college days and in our post-college years in New York.  (You know who you are, PZ.)  She would go to the bar wherever we might be, order some shots or drinks and return to the table.  Then she would pass the drinks out and say, "Here. Drink this."  That was it.  Just "drink this."  Efficient, to the point and universally effective. 

So really, what this all comes down to is one request: if some years from now you see me heading to Denny's at 3:45, please pull me aside and buy me a drink (literal or figurative, either will do just fine) and set it down in front of me with my friend's simple command:  Here, drink this. 

I am thanking you now, in advance, because I may not be appreciative at the time.  In fact, it seems more likely that I will be pissed at you for making me late and I will be mentally occupied with developing a plan to bolt from the bar, hail a cab and dash for the big D so that I can be sure to get in before the rush.  So, thanks, and all that.  Now, though, I've got to go.  I've got some chili on the stove that I need to attend to if I'm ever going to bag and freeze it in time for my next trip.