Older Happiness

Older Happiness

   "Long after we're gone, the details of our existence will remain part of the public record; in time, they will be all that's known about us, a skeleton of facts, the human ways long decayed."  -- From Shadow Boxing by Wright Thompson, an article that originally appeared on ESPN.com

   Lest I sound too maudlin, I had to step back and look at where the happiness had gone; after all, here I was in a beautiful location and things overall were not just good, they were excellent.  And truth be told, I was indeed quite happy.  Puzzled a bit, maybe, but quite happy.  Yes, my aunt had passed and I was growing a bit older and my belly was telling me that everything I now savored would come with a price; sweat or starve blackmail was all that it was, take it or leave it.

   And from this period, there are several things that seem to stand out, at least for me, as I reach this point where relatives are passing more often, as if to mimic my memories of them diminishing as well, surging at me like a shooting star at events such as my aunt's recent internment and hearing my cousins tell me that they are now in their fifties, a mock-shock as I like to say, for how can that be?  Not all that long ago they were kids, not even children, but kids.  And yes, they had  appeared to have grown through my occasional visits; even I could see that...but now they were in their fifties?  What sort of trickery was this that my mind was so unaccepting of it all?

   But as mentioned in my earlier posting, coupled along with all of this was a sort of calmness.  Maybe it was an acceptance of sorts, a shrugging of the shoulders as if to say, what can you do about it?  Life goes on.  Then along comes another dang article from The Atlantic, this one titled, The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis.  Surely that time had come and gone for me (at least the midlife part had, for sure, my age being the surest sign of that);  But now comes something close to a scientific acceptance of what's called a "happiness U-curve,"  a pattern that suggested, life satisfaction would decline with age for the first couple of decades of adulthood, bottom out somewhere in the 40s or early 50s, and then, until the very last years, increase with age, often (though not always) reaching a higher level than in young adulthood, according to the article by Jonathan Rauch. 

   This pattern crossed over geographic and economic lines, and was heading rapidly toward becoming what development economist, Carol Graham of the Brookings Institution called, "Something about the human condition."  The curve tends to evince itself more in wealthier countries, where people live longer and enjoy better health in old age.  Sometimes it turns up directly in raw survey data—that is, people just express less overall satisfaction in middle age.  But here’s a wrinkle: in many cases (including the two analyses I just cited), the age-based U-curve emerges only after researchers adjust for such variables as income, marital status, employment, and so on, thus looking through to the effects of age alone.  By that it was meant that it was understood that those entering their roaring 20s brought with them fresh beginnings and that their 30s and 40s brought societal pressures such as jobs and homes and raising children into the picture, and still happiness grew as they entered their 60s. 

   In a 2012 paper evocatively titled “Don’t Look Back in Anger! Responsiveness to Missed Chances in Successful and Nonsuccessful Aging,” a group of German neuroscientists, using brain scans and other physical tests of mental and emotional activity, found that healthy older people (average age: 66) have “a reduced regret responsiveness” compared with younger people (average age: 25).  That is, older people are less prone to feel unhappy about things they can’t change—an attitude consistent, of course, with ancient traditions that see stoicism and calm as part of wisdom...None of this, again, proves that people automatically get wiser with age (or more satisfied, or more calm, or more grateful). Many young people are wise, and many old people are not. It does hint, however, that aging changes us in ways that make it easier to be wise (and satisfied, and calm, and grateful).  It was, to be brief, a sentiment summed up by the author's father who told him, “I realized I didn’t need to have five-dollar reactions to nickel provocations.”

   Then the following article came out with this: What to say?  In my 20s, I was a sucker for such stuff.  Worse, I was painfully slow to notice my own posing.  Only after the passage of some time and the small, salutary shock of having my wallet stolen did I examine these three professions of secular faith and realize, with an inward blush, that what I had wanted was simply closure, a way to stop thinking about questions whose answers were beyond my reach...“Tell me,” the poet Mary Oliver asks, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  We never truly know how to reply to that challenge, do we, since more knowledge—the knowledge we do not have—could always justify holding current plans in abeyance just a little longer (the article is titled, Why God Will Not Die by Jack Miles).

   So what am I to make of this all?  Was I gaining a bit of wisdom underneath what was supposed to be a sorrowful-Jones shell?  As the waves crashed below me today, their crystal clear waters looking to me like an inviting temptress waiting to both welcome and destroy me, I thought only of how beautiful this world was right now.  Right now.  The wind was blowing furiously, the skirts and hats flying as if to mock those things we thought we held on to;  yet it seemed almost magical that so many things could coexist, the world providing and continuing to provide, even as we gobbled what she offered, perhaps carelessly and perhaps foolishly. 


   Right now I was heading back up on that U-curve of happiness, older and more than accepting of the new roller coaster ride up.  Maybe there would be a ride back down, or maybe I would simply keep ascending until...what?  A fall off a cliff because the track simply ended?  At this point in my life, who cared?  Life right now was dazzling, stunning in all its forms, in all its ways...even if I was a bit older and still didn't understand it all.   A nickle provocation.