In youth the days are short and the years are long; in old age the years are short and the days long. ~Nikita Ivanovich Panin
And in-between, the days are short and the years are too. ~ Gyrfalc
Time is on my mind a lot these days, because quite frankly, I don't have any, and I don't understand why. There seems to be some principle of physics - relativity, perhaps - at work here; one which our professors conveniently never mentioned back in school, probably because they were old and didn't have time. Yes, I get the part about if I'm on a train and I throw a ball and there's an observer on the ground and all that, by why the hell didn't didn't they tell us that as we got older, time would compress in some sort of aging doppler effect?
For the benefit of society, I have turned my scientific attention to the matter, and have calculated a new universal constant - feel free to call it "Gyrfalc's Constant" in any article celebrating my achievement - which is the ratio of actual time elapsed to percieved time elapsed as one reaches, er, middle agish. And that number is... 1.6.
Allow me to illustrate. I work with a young couple who recently had a baby boy, their first. I recall that the baby shower was, seemingly, just a few months ago. If pressed, if forced to lay down good money, I would have said that their child was maybe 12 months old, tops. So, the other day the proud father calls me over to admire the latest photo of his son, who is, as it turns out, 19 months old. And 19 months divided by 12 months is a ratio of 1.6, approximately.
This is not a singular example; the same time compression seems to pervade everything I do these days. Come back from lunch at 1:00, work for an hour, and discover that it's 2:36 pm. Go to a one-hour meeting, and you're in there an hour and a half, although in this case, some sort of dark anti-matter force that emanates from managerial types can reverse the effect and make it feel like three hours.
So, while younger folk are enjoying a full 24 hour day, mine is compressed to a mere 15 hours by the aging doppler effect. Granted, the scientific jury is out as to whether this effect applies while sleeping, so for the sake of argument, we could say that in a 16 hour waking day, I have 10 usable hours: 8 for work, and 2 for fixing whatever disaster arose while I was away from home.
I'd love to say more, but I gotta run and get the dishes done while I still have time.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Spirit of Youth
The process of maturing is an art to be learned, an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth. ~Marya Mannes, More in Anger, 1958
A week in from my 50th birthday, a little more, and so far the effort to be sustained, the determination to start on a new path, has held sway. The art, however, may have to wait a bit. My goal for this week was simple: get up early every day and walk. No excuses. Every day. Don't have to set any records, it's not a race, just get out of bed and walk. My body resisted with a litany of complaints, my mind mumbled sleepy objections, but the spirit rose up and prevailed, and I walked. Every day.
I remember that spirit. It's something I treasure most from my youth, when I threw myself at every challenge I could dream up, and then some. The harder the task, the better I liked it. But somewhere along the way, that spirit dwindled, or perhaps it changed into something else that I did not quite recognize, like long hours sitting at a desk. It's as if the daily drudgery of responsible life eventually tatters the sails of hopes and dreams, and leaves you drifting, resigned, on whatever current meanders by.
Therein lies the real challenge I'm facing. The walking is nothing, really. I can walk. I could go out tomorrow and walk all day if I had the time. It's the desire, the rekindling of the youthful spirit, that I'm after. I want to want to see how far I can go, how high I can climb, how fast I can run. I want to want to see how much I can read, how quick I can solve, how fast I can learn. I want to want - want to really live - again.
A week in from my 50th birthday, a little more, and so far the effort to be sustained, the determination to start on a new path, has held sway. The art, however, may have to wait a bit. My goal for this week was simple: get up early every day and walk. No excuses. Every day. Don't have to set any records, it's not a race, just get out of bed and walk. My body resisted with a litany of complaints, my mind mumbled sleepy objections, but the spirit rose up and prevailed, and I walked. Every day.
I remember that spirit. It's something I treasure most from my youth, when I threw myself at every challenge I could dream up, and then some. The harder the task, the better I liked it. But somewhere along the way, that spirit dwindled, or perhaps it changed into something else that I did not quite recognize, like long hours sitting at a desk. It's as if the daily drudgery of responsible life eventually tatters the sails of hopes and dreams, and leaves you drifting, resigned, on whatever current meanders by.
Therein lies the real challenge I'm facing. The walking is nothing, really. I can walk. I could go out tomorrow and walk all day if I had the time. It's the desire, the rekindling of the youthful spirit, that I'm after. I want to want to see how far I can go, how high I can climb, how fast I can run. I want to want to see how much I can read, how quick I can solve, how fast I can learn. I want to want - want to really live - again.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Confidence in Me
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. ~Victor Hugo
The big day has arrived, five decades in the making, and with it, my determination to set out on the right foot for the rest of the journey. Doesn't seem so much like a birthday as more of a giant New Year's day, with all the attendant resolutions. But these I intend to actually keep.
The first order of business is physical health. There was a time - and it wasn't that long ago - that I took this for granted. Exercise came easy and often, and I could bend, fold, spindle and mutilate myself in any way without any significant repercussions. The speed at which this situation changed was nothing short of shocking. One week I'm jogging, the next I'm barely able to negotiate stairs on knees that seemed ready to implode. One week I'm squinting a little to see the computer screen, the next I'm fumbling around with glasses for the first time.
The list goes on, sadly, and it began to wear on me. Various random attempts to curtail the slide seemed to do more harm than good, and I soon found myself caught in a self-imposed (that's hard to admit) cycle of excuses and exhaustion and bad habits and general malaise. The discipline required, I could no longer muster.
Ok, I say, this is no time to panic. There are grown men almost my age who are playing professional sports. Yes, they have sultry cheerleaders and whirlpools and cortisone to spur them on, but still, it seems like I should at least be able to tackle the stairs without any sort of mechanical lifting device or oxygen tanks involved. And if I could button my britches without sucking in a breath, that would be a plus.
I browse the web, reviewing all my options for health-club memberships, and in the end, decide the solution is a spreadsheet. Way cheaper. I plot my strategy, assigning points for all the positive things I do during any given day, and convince my wife to make room in the budget so I can cash in these chips for some tangible reward. According to my calculations, a perfect score could earn me $730 in no-questions-asked mad money after one year. Figuring in the occasional beer(s), pizza, and exercise time spent surfing for crucial information like the current weather conditions in Antarctica, $100 might be a reasonable goal. Slow and steady and persistent, I tell myself, that's the key. It's not a destination, it's a journey.
Day 1, I must say, was a rousing success. Meaning I was able to rouse myself from the bed at some ridiculous hour and walk at a brisk pace, urged on by the sound of music - specifically, The Sound of Music. Back in the day it was Deep Purple booming in the high school weight room that did the trick, but now some crooning nuns are sufficient to keep me going, and when Julie belts out that she has Confidence in Me!... well I do too.
The big day has arrived, five decades in the making, and with it, my determination to set out on the right foot for the rest of the journey. Doesn't seem so much like a birthday as more of a giant New Year's day, with all the attendant resolutions. But these I intend to actually keep.
The first order of business is physical health. There was a time - and it wasn't that long ago - that I took this for granted. Exercise came easy and often, and I could bend, fold, spindle and mutilate myself in any way without any significant repercussions. The speed at which this situation changed was nothing short of shocking. One week I'm jogging, the next I'm barely able to negotiate stairs on knees that seemed ready to implode. One week I'm squinting a little to see the computer screen, the next I'm fumbling around with glasses for the first time.
The list goes on, sadly, and it began to wear on me. Various random attempts to curtail the slide seemed to do more harm than good, and I soon found myself caught in a self-imposed (that's hard to admit) cycle of excuses and exhaustion and bad habits and general malaise. The discipline required, I could no longer muster.
Ok, I say, this is no time to panic. There are grown men almost my age who are playing professional sports. Yes, they have sultry cheerleaders and whirlpools and cortisone to spur them on, but still, it seems like I should at least be able to tackle the stairs without any sort of mechanical lifting device or oxygen tanks involved. And if I could button my britches without sucking in a breath, that would be a plus.
I browse the web, reviewing all my options for health-club memberships, and in the end, decide the solution is a spreadsheet. Way cheaper. I plot my strategy, assigning points for all the positive things I do during any given day, and convince my wife to make room in the budget so I can cash in these chips for some tangible reward. According to my calculations, a perfect score could earn me $730 in no-questions-asked mad money after one year. Figuring in the occasional beer(s), pizza, and exercise time spent surfing for crucial information like the current weather conditions in Antarctica, $100 might be a reasonable goal. Slow and steady and persistent, I tell myself, that's the key. It's not a destination, it's a journey.
Day 1, I must say, was a rousing success. Meaning I was able to rouse myself from the bed at some ridiculous hour and walk at a brisk pace, urged on by the sound of music - specifically, The Sound of Music. Back in the day it was Deep Purple booming in the high school weight room that did the trick, but now some crooning nuns are sufficient to keep me going, and when Julie belts out that she has Confidence in Me!... well I do too.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Two Days from Base Camp
In two days, I will be fifty years old. You might assume that this event - which arbitrarily seems to carry the mathematical heft of Avagadro's number or the speed of light or some other constant I can no longer remember - is freaking me out. You might be right.
So, I decided to do something. I'm a man of action. Granted, increasingly slow action, but action nonetheless. Plan A was to come up with an analogy or slogan to cling to... you know, like "50 is the new 20" or "Life begins at 50" or something like that. Something to emblazon on a t-shirt, that might get me to walk an extra block when the dog needs to go out, get me motivated to take up new hobbies, save the planet, embarrass my teenage sons, or at least get the dishes washed.
In my youth (ahem), I climbed mountains back home in Colorado. The first part of the climb was always jaunty and invigorating and full of promise, but eventually you would begin to face increasingly difficult terrain, your legs would start to burn, your breath would become increasingly short. Near the top it would become a single-minded struggle to merely put one foot in front of the other. But I never turned back. And now, when I look back on those days, it is the stark beauty of the alpine that I remember and treasure, the grand vistas, and the tremendous sense of peace and accomplishment that greets you at the summit. The second half is tougher, but it's well worth it.
So, there's my analogy, and I'm sticking to it. I've just reached timberline, and the deep forests and babbling streams of youth are quickly receding below. Who knows where this blog will go, or whether I can even devote any time at all, but my intent is to follow myself through these times, looking back some, looking ahead some, but mostly reminding myself to take my eyes off the trail and just look, period.
But first things first. I'm seriously out of breath already, which doesn't bode well, and I've been gorging on way too much trail mix over last few legs of the journey. Time to regroup and get serious about this assault on the summit.
See ya... gotta run... the dog needs a walk.
So, I decided to do something. I'm a man of action. Granted, increasingly slow action, but action nonetheless. Plan A was to come up with an analogy or slogan to cling to... you know, like "50 is the new 20" or "Life begins at 50" or something like that. Something to emblazon on a t-shirt, that might get me to walk an extra block when the dog needs to go out, get me motivated to take up new hobbies, save the planet, embarrass my teenage sons, or at least get the dishes washed.
In my youth (ahem), I climbed mountains back home in Colorado. The first part of the climb was always jaunty and invigorating and full of promise, but eventually you would begin to face increasingly difficult terrain, your legs would start to burn, your breath would become increasingly short. Near the top it would become a single-minded struggle to merely put one foot in front of the other. But I never turned back. And now, when I look back on those days, it is the stark beauty of the alpine that I remember and treasure, the grand vistas, and the tremendous sense of peace and accomplishment that greets you at the summit. The second half is tougher, but it's well worth it.
So, there's my analogy, and I'm sticking to it. I've just reached timberline, and the deep forests and babbling streams of youth are quickly receding below. Who knows where this blog will go, or whether I can even devote any time at all, but my intent is to follow myself through these times, looking back some, looking ahead some, but mostly reminding myself to take my eyes off the trail and just look, period.
But first things first. I'm seriously out of breath already, which doesn't bode well, and I've been gorging on way too much trail mix over last few legs of the journey. Time to regroup and get serious about this assault on the summit.
See ya... gotta run... the dog needs a walk.
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