Lifetime Buddy
About twenty years ago when Dustin Hoffman was 67 years old, I happened to hear him speak about one of the films he had just made. Perhaps it was Runaway Jury or Finding Neverland, but the point is that he was invited to talk about the film at the New York Director’s Guild Theater on 57th Street. I was a member of a DG Film Club that regularly heard from actors, directors and producers after the early showings of their films. Mostly they spoke about the film, but occasionally they gave us some personal insights. On that particular occasion, someone asked Hoffman about his love for dogs. He confirmed that his life revolved around dogs and that he denominated his life in dogs. He said that he figured at his age he had three dogs left in him. It always struck me as an interesting way to think of your life and I think it places Hoffman very squarely in the true dog-lovers camp. I don’t know the exact age of his dog at that time or how long his dogs have lasted since then, but given the passage of 20 or so years and his current age of 86, I think its fair to assume that he is either on his last or his penultimate dog at this point, by his own reckoning.
Today Kim said something interesting to me. She said that Buddy was destined to be our last dog given his young age, our advancing age and the odds that he, as a small dog, would last for almost twenty years. None of those assumptions or calculations are incorrect and it all stands to reason, but like Dustin Hoffman’s bold statement twenty years ago, anything that circumscribes one’s lifespan is always a show-stopper. What Kim is effectively saying is that one of our natural advantages over our pets, our longer natural lifespan, doesn’t apply to Buddy given our circumstances. He will be around as long or longer than I will most likely. Boom! There you go Buddy, we are on the same footing as of today. I have worked hard to lead a good life for the past seventy years. I feel that all that experience has prepared me well for the time I have left. Buddy, on the other hand is pretty new at all of this and is just feeling out his wings and now that he has relocated, probably has a good deal to learn before being ready or able to say that he is prepared for what is to come.
I am finding this an interesting topic to me because at my stage of life, the downslope so to speak, there is very little that seems limitless and almost everything feels quite finite. I recall Harry Reasoner, the old 60 Minutes host saying that he found comfort in being able to see his horizon and feeling like he more or less knew what he wanted to accomplish, could accomplish and the time he had to accomplish it. That is the most positive outlook for this stage of life that I have ever encountered and it tends to resonate with my achievement orientation, so it is an attitude I would like to adopt, but its not that easy after a lifetime of operating as an optimist that woke up every morning to the feeling that the sky was the limit. All that serotonin that my body produces is still getting pumped into my system and I still awake with that positive feeling and that boundless enthusiasm. How I am able to direct it is quite different, but the brain receptors are still buzzing in the morning and I know that my best days are the days filled with doing. I have often declared that it is my best blessing to have a system that generates such effective brain chemistry, but now I sometimes wonder if that is what’s best for this stage of life.
I will go out on a limb and say that the best way to stay young at heart is to have an outlook that ignores age or other limitations and just sets goals and goes about trying to get things done. Every evening Kim and I ask each other what we have planned for the next day. Some of that is driven by wanting to stay engaged in each other’s day-to-day lives. Some of it is done to remind us of what is on the agenda that we may have otherwise forgotten. But mostly, I think its a way of forcing ourselves to think about what we want to set out to accomplish in the near term. Planning is an important part of doing for someone like me. If I don’t plan to do it I might occasionally get around to doing it, but if I plan it I will almost certainly get it done. Some people prefer to wander through their lives and do things when and if they feel like it. That may work for them, but I’m betting that planners like me get things done more systematically and regularly by virtue of the planning. I understand that life does not move in a straight line and that plans must always stay flexible to be effective, but I also feel that the existence of a plan is what allows flexibility to take hold and reshape events to meet the circumstances of life. There is no shame in planning one thing and ending up with another, but failing to plan and just failing to achieve is a very depressing thought.
This sort of thought process is what has allowed me to have the life I am enjoying on this hilltop and it is what places me at the better end of the leash than Buddy enjoys. It is said that the path to happiness is living in the moment and not spending too much time on the past or the future, but I want to challenge that. I prefer to think of that by saying that the study and awareness of the past is what gives us a better ability to consider the future and determine both what is achievable and what needs to be done to achieve it. Thinking about the future sufficiently is also invaluable in guiding our present actions in the most rewarding manner. Once that is done, one cannot optimize by either staring into the past or staring into the future while the present clicks by. The imperative is to have the past and future in mind so that we can best take advantage of our present circumstances. Staying focused on the present and in the moment is, indeed, extremely valuable at getting things done best. To my way of thinking, that is the best path to happiness because to me happiness flows from achievement and accomplishment, even in the most mundane and simple things.
Buddy is only happy if he is with Kim, but after he realizes that Kim is not coming back immediately, he adjusts and finds a way to be happy with his new reality. I don’t think Buddy can think much about the past and it seems highly unlikely that he has any concept of the future, and that is what limits his outlook. My sense is that he is only happy when his reality in the moment is exactly what he wants it to be, but he has little ability to change his circumstances and is thus either at the mercy of his own ability to modify his wants to meet his circumstances or else he is unhappy. When he is being stubborn, he is more often than not unhappy. When he is flexible, he can find happiness very easily since his overall governing circumstances in our home (shelter, food, water, amusement, companionship) are all there for him. His attitude (especially as to who he is with…Kim or me) is his only binding constraint. I guess that’s a dog’s version of “love the one you’re with” and since he is our lifetime Buddy, the sooner he realizes that the better off he will be.