2022 Oct 17 Monday: Notes to Self

Aging

When your memories exceed your dreams, you are headed for the grave. — Jim Horsley

That’s a quote from Jim Horsley, as related by Bart Hansen, on the 2022 Mar 21 episode of the Wild at Heart podcast, How to Number Our Days. As it turns out Horsley also wrote a book, A Different Kind of Courage. Thankfully I haven’t reached that point yet, I still have big dreams, bigger than my greatest memories. “Retirement” is not a thing.

Having said that, two more things come to mind: First, I have four substack posts that I’ve either completed or drafted and not published…why? Second, my bigger dreams have not been fleshed out, which is to say I haven’t laid out a plan for getting there from here. And maybe that’s how it should be; I hold the dream, I focus on it, and the subconscious mind starts putting the pieces together. That’s actually a message of Think and Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill, and it works in my experience. And, pieces do seem to be falling into place.

But back to the point, why haven’t I published those four posts? One reason I can think of, doubt. They’re not good enough, I’m not good enough, who am I to pontificate on such matters, yada, yada, yada. I have to get by that. But I think that gets me back on point, which is this whole business of aging, while at the same time contributing as much or more than I did while a younger man. Culturally now, in yet another symptom of our potentially terminal cultural illness, we put the most wise among us, our elders, on the shelf. Almost literally, on the shelf. We put them in assisted living facilities, “homes” for the elderly, and such, where they can talk to each other, but not to us. We put them out of sight, out of earshot, and out of mind. And when we do talk to them we don’t ask the right questions of our elders. Stories are great, I enjoy them, and for the most part we’re talking about the good times, right? The funny stories. The wins! But that’s not where the gold is; the gold is in what didn’t go right, and the moral of those stories. The B&N overview of Horsley’s book says it all, “As a decorated Navy combat pilot, Jim Horsley flew to the top of his field, yet still felt unfulfilled. A Different Kind of Courage is the engaging account of his search for true significance.” To be fulfilled, to live a life of significance, to take on something bigger than ourselves…the answer looks like that somehow.

Geri and I visited Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, in celebration of our 10th wedding anniversary this past weekend. We’re not alumni of course. The students were on fall break. No sporting events were on the agenda. Who does that? We had a great time, met some great people, and I felt another puzzle piece falling into place. I’m not done yet. We, are not done yet.