On Being Old

My wife Evelyn and I are not young any more. She was sixty eight a short while back and I will be seventy four in a few weeks. We are in good health and manage to physically and mentally cope with daily chores of our lives. Speaking for myself, I have one big advantage in being old; there are no career ambitions. I have reconciled to what I had wished for but did not achieve in my long career. As for financial success, my wife was a great Financial Officer of the household and we have saved enough for a comfortable, though by no means luxurious, living for the rest of our lives without ever having been the top dogs in our professions. Evelyn still works three mornings a week. Not for the money but due to the passion she has for the work. I write several hours a day, again not for the money; my work rarely gets in print. We have time and energy for our widely scattered family and friends. Still, I feel as if I live with a sword of Damocles hanging over my head. Any moment, without any notice, I could have a stroke, a heart attack, a fatal accident on the highway because of slow reactions or with some luck peacefully pass away into next life in my sleep. I have no idea how much time – days, months, years – I have left, not of life as much as of good health when I can do what I wish. Realizing the unpredictability of my situation, I have prioritised what to do with my time every day and not make any long term plans, particularly those with impact on others.

There are three reasons for undertaking activities. There is something of importance to achieve, it is expected of me, and it is enjoyable. The achievement does not have be important to any one else, just to me. The years when I worked for general adulation are over; remaining years are for what I wished to work on but did not have time or energy to do. There are so many options. It can be travelling to some place of niggling memory from the childhood, some historical place of great personal interest or some irresistible challenge like climbing Everest. It can be living for an extended period in a place I have always dreamed of. It can be reading War and Peace in Russian, studying Hindu epics in Sanskrit, playing Chopin preludes or something as simple as writing an autobiography. The achievement would be in being able to do it – not in becoming a recognised authority on it – autobiography would be for grandchildren to enjoy sometime in the future not necessarily for publication and to win accolades.

The work on hoped for achievement is always tempered by what is expected by the family, friends and community. Family may not share or sympathise with my ambitions and my pursuit could interfere with their own. Moreover, I must help them in their efforts as much as I wish them to help in mine. Friends have demands on my time too. They might need my help when they are ill, my company when they are depressed. Community has stood by me when my kids were growing up and when I needed volunteers to help me and the family. It is time for payback and I must volunteer some of my time and energy for community work.

What about enjoyment. All work and no play makes the senior go senile before his time. There are many books one reads for enjoyment, not for enlightenment. One may watch TV, movies, theatre and opera and listens to music merely for relaxation, not to broaden the knowledge base. Yet, if one could enjoy learning Russian as a first step to burying himself in the world Tolstoy created, daily workouts to get fit to run that marathon or climb that mountain, the need to relax would be that much less and there would be more time in the day for the family, community and himself. Therefore, one key to contented remaining years is the match between the goal and what provides real joy. After all, if one hates practicing whenever there is free time, s/he is not likely to learn ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ leave alone the simplest Chopin prelude. The other, and no less important, key in making the best of the rest of one’s life is to contain the ambitions within limits of her/his inherent capacity. If one suffers from advanced stages of Asthma the chances of making it to the top of a mountain are remote. It is good to dream of catching a star but in real life a little practicality reduces a great deal of disappointment and goes a long way towards making it all enjoyable.

After considering these factors I have chosen to devote whatever free time I have to writing. I will write essays on social and political issues and short and long fiction, wherever the fancy takes me. With this choice I know that whenever the sword falls, not much of importance will be left in limbo. I would hope to publish my work and add to the fund of literature assembled over the ages. But if it is not deemed worthy by editors so be it. I will be disappointed but world will not lose a Shakespeare.

Retaining Canadian Ownership

In an otherwise excellent article lamenting the sale of Viterra, Eric Reguly of Globe and Mail does not point out that the companies he quoted were already largely owned by foreign, mostly American, hedge funds and run by American CEOs. These investors are driven by their short term interests and can not be expected to have Canada's interest at heart. Only way to retain Canadian companies in Canadian hands is to have ownership restrictions. We are constantly being told that we need foreign investment and can not afford such restrictions. We also need foreign workers and foreign managers for economic growth. What it amounts to is that if we want the economic growth, foreigners have to do it from the ground up. Then why lament if they own it too?

Whether we should have economic growth on these terms is an issue which needs some research: By Canadians.

Slow Economic Recovery:

The recovery observed in the first quarter every year since the 2008 collapse is due to lucky few spending their bonuses and once that is done the sales retreat again. There is an obvious reason behind slow recovery in manufacturing and service sectors and I do not know why the economists disregard it. All machinery lasts much longer than it did twenty years ago and needs to be serviced less often. My seven year old Altima runs as well as it did in the first year, something inconceivable even ten years ago. Our fifteen year old appliances do their job as well as they ever did and have not broken down once. There are very few people who replace these items just to acquire the latest models, most use them till they die. The age of an average car is eleven years because recent models last that long without many repairs and it is only going to get longer. Consumers will continue to demand cars and machines which last even longer and need servicing less frequently and manufacturers will have to supply them. With population stable, this will eventually translate into declining sales unless we stop practicing birth control. The implication of continuous quality improvement is that the economy will have to find a different avenue for growth than manufacturing to keep every one gainfully employed.