Clipboard

Last week, the biblical portion of the week was Ki Tisa, which narrated the story of the Golden Calf.  It was probably written as a polemic against idol worship, which persisted among the Israelites at least until the sixth century BCE, but in its own terms it carries significant psychological weight.  It shows how hard it is to change one's behaviors.

My wife, an expert in asking inconvenient questions, asked me on our way home from the synagogue if there were any personal behaviors I found difficult to change.  Yes.  I find myself criticizing the appearance of perfect strangers.  She’s too fat.  Why doesn’t he stand up straight?  Her hair’s a mess.  Doesn’t he realize his comb over isn't fooling anyone?  And so forth.  This is a common fault that we discussed last year in our Mussar group, in connection with the trait of giving honor to others, a fault that I struggled to correct at the time. 

Then we turned to a new trait, I forgot about the old one, and I reverted to my continual criticism, as if I had a mental clipboard on which I was judging the world’s appearance.  But now, in this year’s Mussar group, we’ve returned to the trait of honor and I find myself ashamed that I’ve changed so little, indeed not at all, with respect to these gratuitous criticisms, which surely are a creature of my own insecurities.  And then I felt ashamed of a recent post in which I described three men as “ugly.”  Who am I to judge their appearance?  Was I ever the dream of the year?  And if I wasn’t one at the age of twenty, surely this bent, wizened 80-year old man is not.  But even an Adonis is not entitled to dish out such criticism, for appearance provides little guide to an individual’s character. 

All change is hard, especially when there’s no Moses to keep me in shape.  Even so, I’ll do my best to concentrate on the positive if I can't resist assessing others and to consider my own defects before criticizing others for theirs.



2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

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Grave Goods

As long as corpses have been buried with valuables, either as offerings to the gods or as goods to be used in the next world, graves have been robbed.  When the robbery is surreptitious and carried out for private gain, we call the thieves looters.  When the robbery is carried out in the plain light of day for educational or scientific purposes, we call them archeologists.   But what are the ethics of disturbing the resting places of the dead, no matter how long ago they have died?

This question arose at breakfast yesterday when my wife showed me the front page article in the Science Times about the exhibit,  “Nomads and Networks: the Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan, at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, on loan from four national museums in Kazakhstan.  Taken from burial mounds called kurgans, the objects on display demonstrate that these nomads were not an intermediate step between hunter-gatherers and the complex life of urban dwellers but rather that they were sophisticated, socially stratified, and in contact with other cultures. 

The beauty and craftsmanship of the objects, such as a gold diadem cast in the form of actual and mythological creatures and a golden mask encrusted with semi-precious stones, are stunning.  Taken together, these objects help archeologists learn about the way of life led by these preliterate people, who could leave no written records of their history.  And the display of these goods give those who view them a sumptuous visual treat.  Even so, the increase in our knowledge and the opportunity to see these treasures are the products of desecration and robbery. 

Were not the men and women who were buried in these mounds and were not those grieving relatives who placed them there fully human?  Are they not as deserving of respect as those who were buried last week?  Why do we feel entitled to disturb burial mounds from the fourth century BCE when we wouldn’t dream of doing so to a recent grave? 

When biologists have to kill mice or cockroaches in experiments, they speak of “sacrificing” the victims, thus showing respect for these animals, fellow creatures after all.  Do we show even minimal respect for the people buried in ancient tombs when we not only uncover their corpses but take their treasures? Perhaps we can claim that the careful study of their grave goods shows respect for those whose graves we’ve opened.  But it’s not likely that those who are buried there would have agreed to that assertion had they been asked about it in advance.

My reservations have nothing to do with my own plans for burial, for I've asked my heirs to donate my body to a medical school and then to cremate the remains.  What feeds my disquiet is the lack of respect shown for the inhabitants of these ancient tombs and for their most profound values.  I felt a similar unease a few months ago in the Mummy Room of Cairo's Egyptian Museum, where a dozen or so pharaohs are lined up like so many logs in a row.  The remains of the dead deserve the same consideration as we would want those of our own loved ones to receive.   They ought not to be treated like so many artifacts, even though they are thousands of years old.  Still, they'll probably be preserved a lot longer than most of us, whose remains will return to dust within a few generations.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Vanity

My last post was mean-spirited, says my wife.  I had written about a visit to my dermatologist, where I had seen before and after photographs of patients on whose faces or necks he had performed minor plastic surgery.  While the surgical interventions were successful – bags under the eyes were lightened, fat around the neck was lessened, etc. – I saw only minor improvements in the patients’ overall appearance.  In the case of three ugly men, they remained ugly after their surgery. 

Perhaps you didn’t see much improvement, my wife told me, but they probably did and it gave them more confidence.  She told me of a young woman whose relationships with men were transformed after breast reduction surgery, although no one but her saw any need for it.  Where, my wife asked me, was your sympathy for these patients’ pain and expense and for the emotional distress that led to their seeking surgical relief?

The day after this mild scolding, Saturday morning, I had the honor and privilege of delivering, to our prayer group, a commentary on the week’s bible portion.  I put on a black turtleneck sweater and a tweed jacket.  No, that won’t do, I told myself as I looked at myself in a full-length mirror.  I changed jackets.  Then I noticed that the skullcap I was wearing, the one I had bought in Abu Simbel, clashed with my jacket.  So I changed to a blue one.  But the blue cap clashed with my silk square, so I had to replace the square.  After I had replaced the square, I looked at myself in the mirror again, posing for animal crackers, as my father used to say, and pronounced myself satisfied.

And then I laughed.  I was scarcely different, I realized, from those patients who had undergone plastic surgery to such little effect.  All of us wanted to look our best.  Yet for all my efforts, my overall appearance would have changed no more than theirs.  The members of my prayer group would see a bent, wrinkled old man, no matter what skullcap, jacket, or silk square I was wearing.  If they were thinking about anyone’s appearance, it was their own, not mine.  So, if it’s possible to learn anything new at 80, I hope I’ve learned that I should examine myself before criticizing others.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Blindness

The other day, while waiting for a dermatologist to examine me, I watched an automated slide show displaying photographs of some of his patients before and after surgery.  He had performed liposuction on necks, performed laser scaling of faces, lifted eye lids, lifted bags from under the eye, and so forth.  There were equal numbers of male and female patients and most were middle-aged, although several appeared to be in their seventies.  The cosmetic changes were immediately apparent, but what was remarkable was how little difference they made to the patients’ overall appearance.  Those who were homely, the majority in fact, remained so.  In three cases, the men were spectacularly ugly both before and after surgery, leading me to conclude that there’s no end to our vanity and self-delusion.  

 
2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Calling a Spade a Spade

Have you ever thought of just the right thing to say too late to say it?  I did when someone addressed me as “young man,” and the comeback I’d thought of was too late.    But I determined to use it the first time the opportunity presented itself.  Well, the opportunity presented itself a couple of times before I finally used it, first because I had forgotten it and then because I didn’t think of it in time.  But last week, when a hospital orderly, helping me down from a cystoscopy table, said “easy, young man,” I said “if I look like this when I’m young, what will I look like when I’m old?”  This made him laugh and gave me immense satisfaction. 

But why should being addressed as “young man” bother me?  Does that term of address suggest that old age is disreputable, shameful and therefore the speaker must pretend that I’m young?  If this was the speaker’s goal, a far better strategy to accomplish it would have been to use a neutral term, such as “sir,” or “Mr.” plus last name or even the elder’s first name alone, as so many medical workers do. 

But I don’t think that was the orderly’s goal.  His tone was both respectful and affectionate. Would I have felt better had he addressed me as “Grandfather,” as is the custom in some other cultures, or “Grandpa”?   I wouldn’t mind “Grandfather,” although its use would mark the speaker as foreign.  But “Grandpa” would be as irritating as “young man,” because it carries more than a whiff of condescension.   And now that I think of it, that’s the basis of my reaction to “young man.”  It strikes me as condescending. 

For years, my late beloved Uncle Bill would greet me with “hello, young man,” even when I had reached middle age.  But of course I was a young man in comparison to him.  His term of address was a mark of affection and I understood it as such.  Nowadays, the only people who address me as “young man” are strangers, invariably men of lower socioeconomic status.  Perhaps there are different rules of speaking at play here.

I recall the transit authority worker who addressed me as “Buddy” last summer as he complimented me on my attire, telling me that I looked so “sharp” I’d be able to go out with beautiful women.  “I already am,” I said, gesturing toward my wife who was walking ahead of me.  (For once I had a timely response.)  He laughed and I felt good about the exchange.  He was as condescending as the hospital orderly, but unlike the orderly, his address was humorous and ironic. 

If I complain about being called “young man” it shows I don’t have much to worry about, and for that I’m grateful.  In response to my good fortune, I’ll try not to take myself so seriously.  What, after all, does it matter?

A Sudden Death

A house fire recently killed A.R., my brother’s college roommate, his oldest remaining friend.  I’d met him many times, beginning with my brother’s wedding in 1961, continuing with the marriages of my brother’s children, and ending with the party that my brother and his wife gave last June to celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary.  That last time, A.R. and I spoke as we always did.  And as always I found him to be a likeable, sensible guy and easy to talk to – requisites, I guess, for the successful practice of his profession, psychiatry. 

For my brother, who spoke to him just a few days before he died, A. R.’s loss is a major blow.  Friendships are precious.  Each is its own world.  When that friendship dies, a world dies with it.  I was sad, of course, to hear of A.R.’s death, and I was concerned for my brother, but I also regretted not having made more of an effort to explore the landscape of A.R.’s life during that anniversary celebration. There would always be another time, I thought, if I thought about it at all. 

A. R. was my brother’s age, four years younger than I, so I never thought of him as an old man, although of course at 76 he was.  I didn't wonder, as I said goodbye to him last June, if this would be the last time I would see him, as I did with my uncle and my father during their last years, as I still do for friends who are a lot older than I am. 

We’re advised to be grateful to see the sun rise, and in general I am.  But what A. R.’s death has driven home to me is that we should also be grateful that the sun rises for members of our family and friends, even the youngest among them.  A school mate of my nephew, a young man, just died from a heart attack.  His sudden death could no more have been predicted than A.R.’s death in a fire.  My interest in predicting my own longevity, outlined in the past few posts, blinded me to the longevity of others.

But it’s obvious we cannot frame each conversation with someone who is close to us as if it will never see one another again.  If we acted that way, our friends and family would hide behind the curtains when they saw us coming up the steps.  But we can at least be aware that the time will come when we cannot say anything more to the persons we love. That’s an incentive to say it now.  “I love you” would be a good place to start.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Concentrating the Mind

In my last post I presented my life expectancy according to various indices.  These ranged from a 50% chance of living another ten years to only a 4%-14% chance of living that long.  The morning after posting that essay, I awoke with a fever and knew almost at once that another bronchitis attack had begun. This is not a death-defying illness.  Indeed bronchitis is literally an intimate if promiscuous bedfellow, visiting me three or four times a year.  But its appearance so soon after my post about the odds of my reaching given ages reminded me that these indices are not academic exercises.  They deal with my death, which can come at any time.

But perhaps it would be more constructive to say that they also deal with life, for even the most pessimistic of the medical indices gives me a 72%-80% chance of living for at least another four years.  “ Depend upon it, sir,” Boswell reports Johnson as asserting, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”   The certainty of death in two weeks must concentrate the mind more wonderfully than does the relatively small chance of dying within four years.  But since these odds  are scarcely negligible, I have to ask myself, as I recuperate from this damned bronchitis attack, how I want to spend the time that is left, whether it's ten years, five years, or for that matter two weeks. 

In June we’re scheduled to travel to Alaska to attend the festivities surrounding the celebration of the 41^st anniversary of a good friend’s 39^th birthday and the 60^th anniversary she and her husband will be observing.  And in July we hope to travel to Jerusalem to see old friends and to visit once again our familiar haunts.  We have no more major travel plans after that.  And to tell the truth, I think I’ve seen enough of the world already.  If I never watch the penguins on an Antarctic iceberg or observe Carnaval in Rio, I won’t feel that my life has been wasted.  The same can be said for writing another book. 

What comes to mind, when I consider what to accomplish during this last stage of my life, is similar to what I proposed twenty years ago, as I was lying on an Aegean beach following an operation to remove a colon cancer.  The first aim was the maintenance and if possible the strengthening of my relationships with family and friends.  That aim remains the same.   I will continue to do my best to listen to my family and friends and not to take them for granted.  They require conscious and continuous attention.  The second goal was the enjoyment of music, art, and literature.  Experience has taught me that this was a pious wish, and that in fact reading is more important to me.  I will do my best, when I read for pleasure, to confine myself as much as possible to great literature.  This may mean that I won’t have read most of the current best sellers, but ars longa vita brevis, and besides, truth to tell, few of the current best-sellers have given me more than moderate enjoyment.

Twenty years I also set a third goal, which was to find out what else I could do outside the academy.  If I haven't found out by now, it's not likely that I ever will.  However, I've replaced it with another goal, and that's to continue writing this blog, this personal account of the ups and downs of aging, for as long as possible.


2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved