The Fears of the Aged
The older I get the more fearful I get. There was a time, not so long ago, after I had looked into the abyss of a career debacle, when I thought to myself that there really was nothing short of a random bear attack that would scare me. There is a bit of humor in the fact that my worst career debacle was while being the CEO of Bear Stearns Asset Management. Stranger still was that during my first big career debacle, while serving as CEO of BT Bank of Canada, I collected a library of books on bear attacks and how to avoid them. I guess lesson #1 should have been to avoid working at a place with Bear in its name. Some people are born with an over-abundance of caution and others seem almost devoid of it. Some kids climb trees without trepidation while others cower behind their mother’s skirt. There’s no accounting for those innate instincts, but we all see it and know it exists. The fears of youth give way eventually to the fears of adult life and things like various forms of insurance come into play to help us past them.
The most common fear, I imagine, is the fear of death. It has prompted great existential philosophers and driven countless people of all religions and over all the millennia, to worship in the temples and churches of their choice. We all pray for salvation in one way or another, and that redemption we seek is mostly from some unknown and unseen fear of something we simply do not understand. If we are lucky, we each find ways to compartmentalize that fear and go on about our lives with happiness and meaning. If we are not able, strangely enough, that very fear that plagues us probably contributes mightily to the very demise we so dread, and usually prematurely and with greatly unfulfilled dreams. But if we are lucky, we are able to grapple that dark beast and wrestle it to the ground so as to gain dominance over it. That moment is a great moment of truth for us, not in its ability to overtake the fear, but rather to give into the inevitability of it and thereby put it into perspective and live our best life.
“Don’t worry, be happy!” Is what Bobby McFerrin tells us and the luckiest of us are able to do just that. In the classic movie, King of Hearts with Alan Bates, happiness during the brutality of gloves-off war comes by being oblivious to reality and admitting yourself into the asylum for sanctuary. But most of us do not feel we can afford the luxury of going down the stoner path or hiding with our head under the pillow. One of my great framed mementos is of an old Copenhagen Chewing Tobacco ad that shows a cowboy hoisting a heavy saddle on his shoulder. The caption reads, “Some men never compromise, they cope.” And that spoke to me as a man of responsibility. I felt the need to cope. I felt that coping was noble. I suspect the etymology of the Yiddish word schmuck, might include some poor schmuck who suffers quietly and has learned to simply cope.
But then again we don’t all cope the same way and are not all so visible or noticeable in our coping. Some of us sit up in the middle of the night and write about whatever troubles them (that would be me), while others sleep the deep slumber of the innocent. I suppose I have eaten of the apple of knowledge and am forever doomed to the purgatory of awareness (note that I have not said wisdom). Being wise is to take things in stride and not let them derail you or your peace of mind. In the movie The Green Book, Tony Lip is the wise man (or should I say wise guy?) where the educated Dr. Shirley is wracked with fears and doubts. We all want to be Tony, but most of us are more like Dr. Shirley.
Last night I watched The Finest Hours as Chris Pine plays Bernie Webber, the coastguard man that quietly declares that the regulations say you gotta go out into the storm but do not say you will or must come back in. That movie is about fearlessness. And the truest definition of bravery is of the person who knows the risk and feels the fear, but simply puts his head down and confronts it as duty or love or loyalty or whatever. Bernie Webber, like Tony, is who we want to be. Few of us have to face the Chatham Bar with its howling waves, but still we have an abyss or beast of some sort to go eyeball to eyeball with.
As I have gone through my lifecycle of fears and done battle with my demons, the good news is that I have survived, but the less wonderful news is that I sit in advancing age not so much oblivious and numbed by it all, and more like stripped bare of my defenses. Being naked before the universe is simultaneously debilitating and emboldening. If you ask me today what scares me, there are no bears stalking my nights. I am no longer afraid of dying (check back with me in my last 30 seconds to see if I’m being totally honest about that). I do not fear failure in most any dimension though I will not promise that I like it so very much either. The things I fear most are intangible and somewhat silly. I fear the lack of relevance. I fear incapacitation (mostly due to seeing things that have neutered others in their lives). But mostly I fear the things I think I cannot influence. I cannot make my family and friends happy all by myself. I cannot fix the world and it’s lack of consistent humanity, even though I can light the occasional candle. I cannot find, anticipate or stop the pain that so often rains down on others. That helplessness in the face of need is my worst fear for I have always lived the problem solver’s creed. I am simply less able these days and I suspect that means I fear the dying of Dylan Thomas’ light.
So I sit on this marble tub coping and I while away the wee hours of sleeplessness doing what the dyslexic insomniac agnostic does, wondering if there’s a dog. But I have to go back to bed now because the fears of the aged have mostly to do with being able to get up convincingly in the morning and without a bit more sleep, I might arise and just trip over Betty on my way to the bathroom.