Ask Wednesday: Ask Susan [& Jon]

In Moristotle's time of retirement crisis

By Susan C. Price [& Jonathan Price]

[Questions are followed by answers and then, inevitably by ADVICE...you DID expect that...didn’t you?]

At times of late, I've felt as though my blogging days are numbered. I just haven't had the energy or the fluency of ideas lately. On several occasions I've almost missed a day, but somehow found "the reserve" to come through. Even then, though, I think I had "found peace" with myself and would have been okay with missing a day. Maybe I am wrong, for I didn't actually miss a day and therefore didn't have to deal with any let-down over it. But I haven't missed a day in over two years now, so the first day I do miss will be some sort of "big deal."
    During the dark, early hours of morning, I'm more and more frequently being assailed by the "black dog" – bleak, non-narrative images of despair, loss, the blahs. I'm sorry I can't remember any of them. I don't want to remember them. But I do remember the sense that I'm losing my mental powers, that the "executive functions" of my frontal cortex are waning almost perceptibly and that the ability to cope is fleeing me.
    This morning, fortunately, it occurred to me to "Ask Susan" for advice. (It even felt like a spark of the old "fluency.") I thought this was an excellent idea, not only because I'm sure you will have some advice, but also because you are a contributing editor of the blog, and I think it is advisable to consult with my staff before I actually start missing days or – horrors – announce that Moristotle & Co. is going off the air, which I think I fear would represent "the ultimate retirement" and might spell some sort of end of life as I know it.
    What do you advise? –Moristotle

From Susan

Dear Moristotle,
    Try to notice what you have realized. That missing a day of writing might be a "big deal.” Then put that "might happen" in perspective and decide not to feel that surprised or horrified if or when that occurs...it will simply indicate...change. Not "I'm losing it." Rather..."Hmm...I am changing." Good Boy Scout, Be Prepared. (I fear our next earthquake. I remind myself frequently that: we are sort of prepared, that our apartment is unlikely to squish us, that there will be dislocation, inability to connect and all that. And that the best way to deal with my fear...will be to help and comfort others.)

It’s been true all of our lives...but somehow, maybe because many of our old preoccupations are gone (work, finding love, raising children)...CHANGE is very visible. Since we haven't figured out how to stop time or change (look out for the new "replace YOUR old tired blood with that of a KID"...did you see those scientific results the other day in the newspaper?...I know they were in the NYT...cus Jon saw them...it means the Vampires have won), we need to again recognize what we know/believe to be reality and prepare ourselves to face the changes with interest, good humor, and more humor. As the alternative is the "black dog.”

You can change. The blog can change. No one will die or be very hurt. Who knows…maybe you'll decide to let Madison run it and we'll all be entertained. You created it, you formed it...you can lay it down for a day or forever...it's totally ok. There,...does approval help?

Again, oldie stuff. We think we will be happy reading all day...and we are bored. We think that having no structure to our day/week will feel good and it feels...weird. Surprises and changes....It seems to me that is what this part of life is about. And I sense that each person does this part of life differently: school, higher education, marriage, raising children, work...those have great similarities of experience...the same "form," if you will. And, this one, the last part, is all over the map. And there are many ways to do it. And they are all ok. And we can change what we do. Do a lot. Do nothing…then do something....

Ah, the Black Dog and the early morning in the dark. Many options here. And, may I stress...that THERE ARE ALWAYS OPTIONS and most of them are quite fun. NEVER NEVER NEVER think there are no options. That way lies madness and following the Black Dog into the water.

1. If you are awake or sleeping badly…take a small pill, or get up and read Richard Armour, Mad Magazine, the funny page in the New Yorker...watch an old funny movie. We oldies most days have the luxury of moving our sleeping/waking hours around. No need to fight. Find an alternative. Dancing in your shorts and socks to weird TV shows…whatever.
2. Some of the pictures you don't remember or don't want to see are of the past. We oldies all have survived (pay attention to my word use here) sad/bad stuff. Parents, others we know are dead. We weren't always our best selves. Other folks might have treated us less than wonderfully. Our brains have all that and sometimes do a "cleaning" ...bringing it all up...again. REALLLY useful, hunh?

This is your lead...(that you kind of sort of buried) ahem: “...the sense that I'm losing my mental powers, that the 'executive functions' of my frontal cortex are waning almost perceptibly and that the ability to cope is fleeing me...."

1. Yup, stuff will change. I daresay you don't remember names as well as you used to (translation: stuff is changing in your brain).
2. Luminosity and others offer daily brain games that may or may not improve your frontal cortex. Exercise it by deciding to learn something new: a language, a new sport, a new dance, a new recipe, something weird on the blog/technology. A new form of poetry. Best if it's something you have never done before. (For me that might have to be learning to swim and I have no intention of that...pastry is about as far as I am willing to go.)
3. It’s the "ability to cope" you want to really assess...this, in my mind, is all about EXPECTING AND ACCEPTING AND BEING PREPARED FOR CHANGE. For that's what coping is. And change is what is and will be forever and ever...amen.

End of blog is NOT EQUAL to ULTIMATE RETIREMENT (hey, if that's not a sport…it should be and I bet we could make a mint marketing a game about it! If we wanted to do marketing)....Actually, what does "ultimate retirement" mean to you (at least a paragraph...please)? Do you know anyone who is "ultimately retired"? Interview them. Compare and contrast. Why is this so frightening? Yeah, I know it is...I am confused myself....
    The black dog often just decides to wander away...give it a week or so. If she is seriously attached to your leg...get help = talk doctor and meds. They work.

From Jon

Hey Mo,
    My thoughts and responses begin in self-examination and may apply only to me and my experiences, so forgive me if that is the impression that emerges.
    I guess one of my first thoughts is that the black dog, despair, loss, and bleakness may be signs of depression, which is a fairly common human condition. So, one of my instinctual suggestions is that you, if you haven't already, at least consider consulting a professional therapist, who might have some ideas for you that those of us amateurs and well-wishers don't communicate very well, or don't think of.

It's good that you're paying attention to your moods and thoughts and not just ignoring or denying them, and I don't think there's anything particularly unusual or unlikely that you would have them, but you do need to deal with them. In a way these are similar to the feelings I had when I first began to contemplate my retirement, about six months in, that I didn't feel much like doing anything the next day...and that I was worried about death. Of course it helps to do something the next day and death is a given, but it's a trick not to obsess over it, not to worry about it; when I'm rational, I tell myself the worrying never helps and never makes it better. And that somehow everyone manages it. But odds are, looking at the obituaries and the statistical analyses I occasionally read, that you'll live into your 90s, a long way away.

As to your blog, any diminution in your efforts would be sorely missed, especially by me, because you've been so supportive and so helpful. But you don't need to keep up the daily slog to help me out. In fact, you could pare down, from seven days to five or three, or whatever. I don't think there's a rule that you have to get your blog out every day, unless it's your internal rule. It does seem that you fear a loss of energy or a diminution in blog excitement or fluency. It seems a little early, to me, to associate this with aging and decline: it could just be you've been on this job with diligence for some time now and you need another. My Rx for this dilemma is to have several venues for your time distribution (i.e., a few more interests or activities), so that when the black dog hits (or bites, as it were) you don't stop producing a blog for the next day and feel guilty or let-down or miserable or whatever, you just turn to something else. I play squash, take piano lessons, try out a new recipe (last week I made baklava for the first time and was excited at how it turned out) or take cooking lessons, or have lunch with a friend, or go for an hour's walk. These are just my (current) solutions; they also work well to evade writing. I know you read books and watch films and TV, and those are good alternatives. You could do more of those, if you let yourself. You could also pursue some of what's involved in your blogging in a different way (writing, editing) by looking at ways to revive your editing career, since from what you told me, I think you had some success at it, and could have more.
    I don't think there is any ultimate retirement, and I've certainly learned, over the last few years, that everyone's retirement is different. I have a pretty intelligent friend who often spends hours (4-6 a day) playing poker in casinos and really enjoys it. It's not for me, particularly at that level and frequency – but it suggests there are many alternatives.

The black dog mornings are something you should pay attention to: in these moods, early morning is always the very worst time, in my experience. (Fitzgerald said, "in the dark night of the soul it's always 3 am" or words to that effect.) When I'm feeling a little down at night, or in the early morning, if I get up and read the NY Times and have three cups of tea, I'm always amazed at how much better I feel.
    I can't see, from what you write me, or do in your blog, that your executive or articulate powers are diminishing, but I can imagine you occasionally feel that they are, and that's probably a fairly normal suspicion at our age. But it's also easy to exaggerate what you're feeling and worry about it.

Response from Moristotle

Jon, let me assure you first, and Susan too: I'm certain that I'm not dealing with clinical depression, although recent bleakness has had depression's edge, if only for brief stretches. I now realize that a probably bigger factor in this was my being run-down physically from battling a cold since mid-April. I think that Friday's "confessional" limerick about being "tired and dejected" witnessed as much.
    In the course of just thinking about the question I posed, first for Susan, then for Jon, I'd already begun to confront the challenge of giving up my commitment – or bondage? – to posting everyday. Then Susan's response arrived, with its eloquent support for that option, followed Monday by Jon's...with the result that I have already, finally, overcome my anxiety about the blog's beginning to miss days occasionally – for the first time in over two years. I deliberately didn't post anything yesterday (even though I had material I could have published), as a token that I have released myself from bondage. It feels not just okay, but good.
    As Susan suggested, I have adopted a new perspective. I am not horrified. I am not losing it...I am just changing.
    Thank you both for this, the start of some changes I need to make in my approach, not only to the blog, but to the way I'm approaching retirement...approaching life.

In my "character update" on the first Monday of this month, I admitted that "not much has really changed" since I retired from paid employment. Somehow that very acknowledgment seems to have broken a floodgate. I've noticed a significant change in my daily behavior in the past two weeks. I've put family (my wife and Siegfried) first before the blog, and I've put "what I would rather do now" second before the blog. (Beginning late last week I wanted to finish watching Netflix's original series, House of Cards, before our subscription's temporary suspension went into effect. So that's what I did; I watched the final eighteen episodes in four consecutive days.)
    Another thing that I've sometimes wanted to do more than prepare a blog post was to edit another few chapters of Ed Rogers's novel Boystown, so I'm particularly grateful to Jon for reminding me to respect the other "venues" I have for distributing my time, and for reminding me of my editing career. I look forward to getting back to the project with Ed.
    My new vision of retirement is unfolding, and, at last, I am actually starting to feel...retired. And it isn't feeling like ultimate retirement in whatever bleak, scary way it seemed to be presenting itself to me when I originally posed the question. It's feeling light and free...and fun. And I'm confident that when "what I would rather do now" is prepare a post for Moristotle & Co., the energy, the verve, the fluency, the excitement of creation will be there.
    I do, however, hereby reaffirm my commitment to publishing, on schedule, the blog's regular monthly columnists (Ed, Eric Meub, James Knudsen, & Susan). I hope they have never felt in "blog bondage" themselves, but whether they have or not, I also acknowledge their freedom to miss a month occasionally if they need to for any reason.

Thank you, Susan & Jon – my advisers, my friends, my supportive contributing editors.
    And thanks to contributing editors James, Tom, and Ed, and to the rest of the staff and the blog's readers for sticking with me during my unnerving time of indecision and occasional early-morning bleakness. Let's all go on with a renewed perspective for our daily lives.

[We would really like more questions to answer, so send ’em in….]
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Copyright © 2014 by Susan C. Price, Jonathan Price, & Morris Dean

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