Acting Your Like Your Grandchild

I still buy (only) the Sunday New York Times, though I don't know why.  I guess my addiction has not been completely broken, but I suspect a complete cure may be near. (I would not want to miss the occasional full-length feature which one cannot anticipate - like today's about Haitians living in tents on a road divider where constant fumes and fast moving traffic surround them. It helps put life in perspective. Another several-page story appeared recently about a quadriplegic 22-year-old American veteran of the war in Afghanistan that stays in one's mind for a long time.) 

Anyway, today's paper has an article discussing older adults who feel they must still ape the youthful behavior of younger generations (Ringo Starr, Mick Jagger, etcetera, and lesser known 'sky-diving grandmas')  The article refers to "our obsession with health and longevity" as an extension of the Puritan ethic, i.e., "If I work hard and am a good person and am middle class, I will die a good (late in life) death."  Americans "tend to measure (successful aging) in terms of how active people are."

The article quotes a gerontologist  who says, "It wouldn't do...harm to reinstate some value to contemplation...Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We really don't know how to be...that's stigmatized."

As I sat in the park early this morning meditating and working my water color drawings, I thought, "Activism in this culture is only getting worse."  Cyclists whizzed by me, joggers and runners thump-thumped past me (breathing heavily at my back).  When I went out to the sidewalk, children (and some adults) were on scooters. I saw (double) buggies and more bicycles. It seems that we have become so dependent on our copy-cat gadget attachments that, without them, we fear being arrested in public for nakedness.  So, no, I don't plan to try Mt. Everest any time soon, but a good start would be for 30 to 40-year-olds to start focusing inwards a little, (which might be called deep-water "thinking") beyond the whizz-whizz and thump-thump that also creates their illusion of being alive.