The Next Five Years

Jan 10, 2012, 4:10 PM

To: Louie

The Next Five Years

Dear Louie,

About one month ago, in a writing course that I had begun but not finished, I wrote an assignment by hand on the topic of where I would be in the next five years.  The course director was assigning a generic lesson plan and didn't consider what five years at this stage might mean.  I did the prescribed lesson and, today reviewed what I had written.  

With my memory problems of the present, it was mostly all new stuff.

I will transcribe the assignment and let you shake your head and hopefully smile as you regard my slow decline.

I wrote:

In keeping with the lesson of the day, I will write my plans for the next 5 years.

 It is rather presumptuous to anticipate the next five years; I am now 85.  

To write of the future 5 years, at ages 40, 45, 60,65, or even 70,75, makes more sense than to write of the next five years at the age of 85.  

There are some optimistic yearnings at the younger ages, which, in reality, seems borderline foolish at this age.

Might even be presumptuous.

However, according to the Northwestern Life Insurance tables of longevity, anyone aged 85 with no significant previous illness of tumor origin or cardiovascular disease has some reason for an optimistic position to write of the "next five years" and to state desires for the future.

So, two avenues are juxtaposed: where I perceive to be in five years, if alive, and the other, where I will be if I die during the five years.

I prefer to address the first consideration, although if I were a man of faith, I might realistically spend some time, as did Thomas Aquinas and others, in contemplation.  

However, with the Aztec consideration in 2012, I suppose both positions are dubious.

To live five years into the future at age 85 poses both optimism and pessimism. 

Optimistically, I hope for continued physical and mental health.  I foresee a decreasing ability to enter into family and social involvement; I foresee a realistic decline in motivation and participation in the lives of family members but continual interest therein—a quieter voice in family affairs, but nevertheless, judgments are rendered when an objective view is needed.

Physical functional ability will decline, but it might be modified by continual physical involvement in non-violent activities such as walking, gardening, and, of course, golf.

One must challenge oneself with some frustration.

I have noted memory decline, but recall still comes about when challenged and not under duress, albeit sometimes slower and at less appropriate times. Writing and reading need to be carried on, and those activities seem to compensate for any true loss of cognitive function.  Without a doubt, these skills must be continually honed. 

These are my main goals and activities for the next five years, and writing should not be of a personal biographic nature.

Still, it should have an element of editorial activity, of judgemental and critical nature. 

The principle of active participation demands just that - participation.

I have come to realize that social involvement decreases as one ages and loses friends, but involvement must be continued. 

Obviously, medical skills have declined, but again, this year, I intend to teach a course in Physical Diagnosis and History, now known as Clinical Examination and Reasoning.  I will continue until I am no longer welcome.  I trust someone will state the obvious at the proper time.

Sometime, probably in the near future, medicine will lose its attraction, and a substitute will need to be found.  Reading, historical in nature, has been a welcome pastime in the past and should continue. 

This depends on reading skills, but living in this time and place, the Spoken Book concept seems promising. 

Listening to a reading book activity demands concentration in its participation, and concentration, I believe, stimulates the neurons to function at a higher level.  I hope to wear out the neurons and not to be worn out by inaction.

It would appear that the determinants of active longevity are less personal and more “ the luck of the draw.” 

However, the genetic pattern, if expressed and not abused, in my family is for longevity with fairly active physical and mental participation. 

I do not intend to jeopardize that feature with habits detrimental to active living. 

A martini after four P.M., with two olives on the rocks, is still a virtue and not a vice.  So be it.

Dream on Louie, as do I.

Jim