Aging Revisited

 

 

The following is a continuation from last week’s essay utilizing James Hillman’s terrific insights on character and aging.  A few facts as follows: we know about mortality tables as well as strategies to increase lifespan. More specifically, we know about  various  aging theories; the effect of hormones; miracle minerals; the antioxidants; benefits of exercise; numerous   diets; and anti-stress tips for antiaging. However, psychological characteristics that accompany aging are less well known. This disquisition focuses on four psychological conditions associated with aging. As I am aging, I’ll personalize this disquisition.

It is known that memory is one of the functions in the limbic system and that for most people the left hippocampus is involved in verbal or language oriented memories and the right hippocampus is involved in nonverbal memories.  Specifically, let’s take a look at short-term memory loss which seems to be fairly common as in searching for a word or remembering a name compared with long-term memory. One way to think about the difference between long and short-term memory is that we don’t want to fill up the storage of our significant long-term memory with irrelevant short-term items such as where did I leave my keys?

We certainly want to be able to retrieve, with imagination, our meaningful stories and facts from our past. According to research, the higher intellectual areas of the cerebral cortex have a significantly lower degree of cell disappearance…. It may even be that the neurons increase their activity… Recent research suggests that certain cortical neurons seem actually to become more abundant after maturity…..the dendrites of many neurons continue to grow in healthy old people … Neuroscientist think they actually have discovered the source of  wisdom which we like to  think we can accumulate with advancing age.

I attended Wayne Elementary School; Jackson Junior High; Denby High School and Wayne State University in Detroit. These schools are located in Wayne County, Michigan which recently was in the news regarding an attempt to overthrow the Democratic voting process. Give thanks to the name Wayne because of Mad Anthony Wayne born in 1745. He was an American soldier- statesman during the beginning of the American Revolution. Unfortunately, Maj. Gen. Wayne died of medical complications during the return trip to Pennsylvania from a military post in Detroit in 1796.

I can tell you, with my imagination, that the following cannot be challenged since it’s my story based on my memory. The kindergarten teachers were Miss Goebel and Miss Rose at my elementary school; Miss Bell was my fourth grade homeroom teacher, Ms. Goodman my fifth grade homeroom teacher and Mrs. Jaques my sixth grade homeroom teacher. I attended homeroom in the morning and learned the 3Rs. After lunch I attended special classes in auditorium,  art, Miss Mallard for music, Mr. Bachman for science and In PE, I ran a 7.7 second 50 yard dash. I probably beat everyone except my competitor Tom Smith. Tom lived on Beaconsfield. At Jackson Junior High, I had to walk to the bus stop for school transportation. Tom, Bob Adams and I were unbeatable in three on three basketball. Attending Denby, Tom and I parted ways only to meet up on the football field as teammates. Smith was a team captain in our senior year and then went on to play for Dan Devine at the University of Missouri. Tom successfully became a school principal but unfortunately was killed in an automobile accident. Years later at a high school reunion I met and fell in love with Judy Knopp. She told me that she and Tom were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school. How’s that for coincidences?

Prior to the start of the football season, in my senior year, I would go to the high school and play football with alumni and current team players. On one kickoff return, I blocked and knocked down Mitch Newman. Mitch congratulated me on that tremendous block. The season started and the first game was against Southeastern. The game occurred on the Jewish holy day of Rosh Hashanah. Our team huddled prior to the kickoff and team Capt. Mitch Newman stated to everyone “let’s win this game for Frank as it’s his holiday.”  That moment was special for me. Mitch later went on to play for Duffy Daugherty at Michigan State.

After the season and graduation, I attended The University of Detroit on a football scholarship. On the first day of practice, I met recruit Dennis Cole, who played for Southeastern high school. Incidentally, we won that game- Denby 40 Southeastern 7. Dennis became a friend and after leaving The University of Detroit, went out to Hollywood and was a costar with Howard Duff in a detective TV series. Subsequently, Dennis married Jacqueline Smith of Charlie’s Angels fame. Dennis was an extremely handsome man.

Another characteristic of the aging process is a heightened irritability. That can be expressed with intolerance, not wanting to put up with inconvenience, refusing to be rushed and rattled. One could fly off the handle with little provocation. Often, frustration plays a part. Frustration could be the result of one’s perception of physical changes and challenges; economic disruptions; political shenanigans; interpersonal disappointments etc. We all know that living in the 21^st century with the current  pandemic and economic fallout is very frustrating, in part because of the disregard for scientific messaging regarding health and prevention. Aside from the political nonsense regarding not wearing a mask, I can become irritable while watching a so-called “news” broadcast. Sometimes the answer to the questions are elementary and obvious to all especially the person that asked the question. Sometimes, the question cannot be answered because it’s vague, hypothetical and based on some future occurrence. If one talks in measured probabilities that would be more accurate. Asking someone or a supposed expert to make a prediction seems meaningless to me.

Waking at night is another condition in aging. The frequent emptying the bladder, results in disruption of sleep. Research finds that a sleep deficit or sleep deprivation results in significant brain changes. Unfortunately, areas of the brain responsible for judgment, impulse control, tension and visual association all become dysfunctional. Chronic sleep deficits are also associated with increased irritability and associated with significant health risks including higher levels of diabetes, impaired immune response, decreased growth in children, increased obesity and higher levels of depression.

At one time, early Christian monks who lived in desert caves tried to banish sleep altogether. They believed that pagan powers were thought to approach pious souls through dreams. In other words, devout persons who were intent upon building a strong character had to be less eager to sleep and had to watch or be awake at night. So character depended on fending off all the fantasies and voices that threatened to lead one away from the Christian path.  If awake, they could discriminate among the various spirits. How’s that for bunk?

Sleep and dreaming however can be beneficial. With dreams, you come to know what you cannot know during the day. Freud called this characteristic repression in that it allows sleep to be protected. Dreams mostly let us sleep peacefully by masking our worries and terrors. Dreams are present in the guise of images we generally don’t understand. It allows us to sleep without waking.  Research in Denmark and Japan found that emptying the bladder was more common for older men because they were no longer retaining salt and water during the night. They excreted more sodium at night and thus voiding more frequently.  The report concluded that some people with nocturia have disordered circadian rhythms and there’s not much you can do to regulate your body’s clock.

We have about a great number of sleep disorder diagnosis and there are numerous sleep disorder clinics. One time, 10% of the population reported a significant nightmare, a thrashing, a whimpering at least once a month. We take numerous sleeping pills, wear incontinent pads, dim the lights, turn down the temperature and eliminate alcohol so that we can rise in the morning without having to tangle with a leaky bladder.

Our dreams represent some residue of the previous day or day’s activities with the addition of fatalistic anxieties, recriminations and vengeful afterthoughts from our history. Perhaps these images belong and should remain in the dark or the impersonal side of the world. Perhaps, they should become available only through the ordeal of nighttime awakenings.

We could began a surface understanding of that hellish reality of the underworld from our unconscious. Our dreams often tell another and deeper story of the dark side of our character. It may not be a rosy picture of who we are as evidenced by nightmares or night terrors. Some choose to explore the dark side or shadow of their character. The majority, however, do not dare to enter the dark side of their character in order to pretend they are normal.

Erotic’s or “Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister” by James Joyce is another characteristic in the aging life process stage. It is known that lust becomes more extravagant. It certainly is a condition in the psyche that fosters creative art, prophecy and exaggerated emotional instability. While the physical powers diminish, imagination cuts loose and runs wild.  On one hand there can be impotence, misogyny and depressive isolation. On the other, lewd fantasies of a dirty old man rises. The power of imagination is extremely important per Socrates and Plato. They believed that “lustful thoughts and images swell the organs.” However, today physiology tells a different story. It reports that only the ovaries in women and the sexual capacity of men decline faster than perhaps anything else in the body. Female lubrication, and male erection can occur .However, with a problem, performance anxiety increases, followed by increased performance failure which then increases performance anxiety etc.

I am pleased that with imagination, touching and foreplay, I have, in my opinion, a well charged and well-functioning libido. Linda, my loving partner and I are in synchronicity. We have what Freud calls “genital love.” Loving and respecting each other during the rest of the day ads to that fulfillment.

At age 88, Dr. Atkins stated “Thanks to erotic imagination… Here is victory over decay... William Butler Yeats in a letter to a friend and former lover at age 87 wrote “I shall be a sinful man to the end, and think upon my death bed of all the nights I wasted in my youth.” Walt Whitman near his end in 1891 wrote letters and notes that paralleled his increased bodily decay. As a patron saint of the naked body, masturbation and sexual love between men, Whitman made that clear distinction between behavior and imagination. During his decline he had numerous physical ailments such as tubercular abscesses, tuberculosis ravaged lungs, intestines, liver and kidney issues, large prostate, and an enormous bladder stone.  He said at old age, erotic fantasy is more than a symptom, more than a compensation. It becomes a private necessity and consequently a societal benefit.

Sexual life is primarily imaginative life; it starts there, feeds there and persists there long after the abrupt and sometimes absurd actualities of events.  Gender does not determine imagination. For example French actress Jeanne Moreau chose roles and directed films that allowed her to grow old gracefully. She stated “you speak of sexuality, most people expect physical sex but sexuality starts in the mind with imagination.” Bernice Wood at 105 stated that after age 85 she liked to play the courtesan and, flirting with outrageous coquettishness. She loved to cultivate the myth of her wickedness and rampant sexuality. “Isak   Denison and Georgia O’Keeffe each accompanied and were attended by much younger men, themselves artists who spurred their imagination and old age. Isak Denison “evenings were spent drinking wine, quoting poetry to each other, playing Schubert… making imaginary voyages and taking imaginary lovers.”

William James wrote about fantastic and the necessary character of human wants. .James said these “wants and even when their gratifications seems farthest off, the uneasiness, they occasion is still the best guide of his life and leave him to issues entirely beyond his present powers of reckoning. Prune down his extravagance, sober him and you undo him.”

 Further, fear and shame can occur during this time as well. The fear of arousal according to historian David Friedberg, lies at the root of censorship, iconoclasm, and the resistance to imagination.  Why should I be so conflicted about the extravagance of imagination? After all they are merely images. Why should I be ashamed? Do not forget that sex, in earlier years, can be more serious as in a conquest. Later on, sex can become more playful, humorous, less serious and less demanding. It can become more of a fulfilling partnership that complements the union.

The presence of beauty and a young body is an inspiration for the old was analyzed by Plato.  Perhaps Dionysus was correct. He didn’t discriminate between gender and age in his display of wine, ecstasy and fertility. However, he had a temper and could be brutal. With pleasure can come negative consequences? No one can blame imagination, its decisions that can lead to self-defeating behavior. Take advantage of imagination with long term memory and eroticism; acknowledge sleep and dream consequences and embrace irritability during this one time adventure.