Jims of Wyzdom

May 18, 2018

Spring term is about to end which must mean summer is just around the corner. I saw the catalog lay-out pages on Jae’s worktable so it won’t be long until it’s in your mailbox. For those of us participating in Interest Groups, well, we’ll just keep gathering and doing our thing.

Last week I laid most work aside so I could sink into one of my guilty pleasures, the latest Dan Brown novel, ORIGIN. It raised some very interesting ideas about 1) where did we come from? and 2) where are we going? The answer to the first question involves science and how life began way way back when. The second question was no surprise if you ever watched “Battlestar Galactica,” that suggested robots or androids were taking over and killing off humankind. Every time I walk down High Street and see just about every young person, and many older folks, glued to their phones, it does give me pause. We're in some kind of transition period where we are seeing major department stores (Belk, Elder Beerman) closing their doors, in large part due to on-line shopping trends and more big stores offering on-line shopping or ordering so all you have to do is pick up your order and drive away. The whole work environment is evolving, into what we’re not quite sure, but it seems frightening. The conclusion of ORIGIN was comforting. If religions get a nasty jolt from the proofs of science, wouldn’t it be a good idea for all of them to offer humanity ethics and a spiritual foundation in which to work with that concept of man having dominion over the world as the Hebrew scriptures promise? After all, if God did create life, didn’t he also either create physics, too, or make man capable of inventing it when it was needed, along with all other science? That’s worth thinking really deeply about, so enjoy your journey!

When grace combines with wrinkles, it is admirable. There is an indescribable light of dawn about intensely happy old age…The young man is handsome, but the old, superb. [Writer Victor Hugo]

When I was forty and looking at sixty, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But sixty-two feels like a week and a half away from eighty. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off. [Actor/Singer Harry Belafonte]

Sixty-two…yikes, that was my mother’s age when she passed. I have outlived her by 11 years, so far. Every so often, I muse to someone, “How old do we have to be to be considered ‘old?’” I agree with my wonderful mother-in-law who, at 80, said she felt no different than she did at 20. I can honestly say in most ways I feel youthful. Isn’t one of the keys to never give up on feeling young and acting young at heart? One of the best things about our OLLI is how many of us insist on continuing our learning and sharing our joy with others.

Oh, death is no problem for me. If I go while we’re talking, I’m ready. My mother had a wonderful philosophy on that. Every time she lost somebody, it was, ”Well, there’s one thing we don’t know the answer to—and now he knows it.” [Actress Betty White]

Keep kool and be young at heart!

Jim Held