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Finding Wisdom in the Arts as we Age
Strategies for cultivating creativity and brain sharpness in later years
I didn’t set out to write another book. I began by pondering, as psychologists do, my current life stage at 60-plus chronological years. Time passes swiftly and change is inevitable. Perhaps it was simply a matter of shifting priorities or interests, but as I approached age 70, I began to feel wanderlust for exploring what could yet be discovered in my own life.
“What’s next?” and “If not now, when?” surfaced as nagging questions begging for answers. These could be the quintessential questions of the first stage in life without a clearly laid-out path and set of expectations. At this point in our lives, many of us are still physically active, intellectually curious, emotionally stable and yearning for meaningful ways to spend our time. But how?
The Life of the Artist
In my case, I went to look at cellos in a San Francisco shop that sells and rents stringed instruments. Knowing nothing more about the cello than the smooth and mellow music it can produce, I rented one along with a case to transport and protect it. In rapid succession, I bought a self-instruction book, a music stand and a metronome.
And thus began my journey with music which led to writing The Vintage Years, a book about the benefit of pursuing the life of the artist after 60. Broadly defined, that includes writing, playing an instrument, pursuing the fine arts of one sort or another or immersing yourself in any activity in a novel or creative way.
I use the term “artist” very loosely. It’s as much about the way you might approach things as the form it takes, bringing openness and a child’s fascination to the experience — what Buddhists call “a beginner’s mind.”
All sorts of books have been written about the years following retirement, but this book specifically focuses on the fine arts because of the benefits they provide to an aging brain, and conversely because the aging brain has capacities that actually help develop the budding, late-blooming artist. This is a circular, reinforcing process, and we are the beneficiaries.
The Science of Aging
The burgeoning field of neuroscience offers some good news to counterbalance the popular beliefs about the downside of getting old.
Research findings suggest that humans don’t outlive their quest for learning and natural curiosity. The brain, according to recent scientific research, does not simply decline, become less robust or lose its capacity for growth. It maintains its vigor quite well and, like a muscle, if you give it the right kind of exercise, it will repay your effort in some interesting ways.
The brain’s ability to adapt, renew, and reshape itself over time is called neuroplasticity, a powerful and relatively new idea. There is some evidence that over-60 folks can actually focus better than the average young person. Our ability to zoom in on what we wish to focus on may be the compensation for other kinds of neural losses. Keeping neurons firing at rates that will ensure brain flexibility is an important goal that requires effort, just the kind of effort that someone at this stage of life is ready and able to give.
The Value of Engaging in the Arts
While writing the book, I decided to interview more than 20 artists who had not begun to explore their passion until later in life. I noticed some significant similarities between them.
One striking phenomenon was their ability to focus with laser sharpness while they were engaged in their art. Whether writing a poem, sculpting or playing the violin, many described being in an altered state of consciousness: alert and aware but without distraction, in a cocoon where nothing else seemed to matter at that moment. They were learning entirely for its own sake and were much less worried about lack of talent, or what others might think, than they might have been earlier in life.
Their stories now highlight The Vintage Years. Here are two examples:
Henry is a woodcarver. A tall, attractive man dressed youthfully in light colored khakis and a crisp plaid shirt, he met me at the door with his walker. At 96, he lives alone and independently with a full life and a busy calendar. He has the distinction of being the oldest of the artists I interviewed.
Woodcarving requires some strength as well as dexterity, and until recently Henry could lift and drag huge hunks of wood. At 68, 78 or even 88, woodcarving had still been manageable. But not at 96. Henry explained, without much sadness, that he has launched into his most recent project, 3-D art. A new beginning!
Nearly 30 years ago, Henry saw an art show that changed his life. Walking through the exhibit, he excitedly commented to his wife at his side, “This is what I like. I want to do this,” referring to a large, detailed woodcarving. And so began his long Vintage Years career as a woodcarver. Simple as that, he began taking classes at the retirement center where he lived in New Jersey.
West African traditional dance piqued Barbara’s interest, and she began taking classes at a local community center where drummers played the rhythm. Over time, her fascination with the rhythmic tempo and beat led her to playing drums in the style of central Africa.
“A friend told me about this drumming class. It was very focusing and when we got into the groove of the rhythm, I really liked it. I’ve stuck with it,” she said. Barbara wasn’t even 60 at the time — the youngest of the “artists” featured in The Vintage Years. She is a psychologist and former dance therapist, perhaps explaining her love of dance and the pulse of drumming.
Wisdom Compensates for Aging
The artists I wrote about have a lifetime accumulation of knowledge and experience, with the added bonus of a calmer more focused brain. This leads to wisdom, a fitting compensation for aging!
Arriving later in life, wisdom enhances the art and the artist. The late-blooming artist could not possibly have blossomed earlier. And the continuous learning of a wise elder is the ultimate stimulant for the brain.
By Francine Toder, Ph.D.Francine Toder, Ph.D. is an emeritus faculty member of California State University, Sacramento and is a clinical psychologist retired from private practice. She is also the author of The Vintage Years: Finding your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty. Her most recent book is Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully. Her extensive writing on diverse topics appears in magazines, professional journals, newspapers, blog sites and as edited book chapters. She resides in the San Francisco Bay area.
Can We Talk … About Death? (from Next Avenue)
Credit: Elle Moulin for Next Avenue
Katie Couric has regrets. Even to this day.
When the former TV news anchor spoke at Georgetown University at an event titled “The Healing Power of Communication” in August, 2019, she said she wished she had talked more to her late husband, Jay Monahan, about his impending death before he succumbed to colon cancer at 42 in 1998.
“It was just terrible,” Couric said. “After nine months of trying desperately to figure out some way to manage it, he lost his battle — and it was devastating.”
She explained that she’s writing her memoir and recently had drinks with Monahan’s two doctors to “revisit” those days.
“I told them how guilty I felt about so many things about Jay’s illness and that we never really discussed, you know, even entertained the idea that he might die. I was so afraid to give up hope, and make him give up hope, that we never discussed the alternative, which I really regret,” Couric said.
For example, she said, “He never wrote a letter to our girls” — daughters Ellie, 28, and Carrie, 23.
“I honestly believe that we, as a species, will do better if we come to terms with our mortality earlier in life.”
The fine line between maintaining hope and offering a reality check is tricky territory, said Dr. John Marshall, oncologist and director of Georgetown’s Ruesch Center for the Cure of Gastrointestinal Cancers, who was interviewing Couric at the event.
“As soon as we enter that world, we see the light go out,” Marshall said. “We don’t like doing that. So the balance of being on point and brutal, if you will, and factual, versus that maintaining of hope…”
“It must be a dilemma,” Couric responded. “For me, I erred on the other side — trying to protect Jay from information he had a right to hear.”
So, which is more important: knowing the reality of your situation or maintaining hope?
Most of us don’t want to hear bad news, especially this kind of bad news. And most of us don’t want to talk about it, or plan for it. And yet, in recent years, the thinking about this is beginning to change as our aging population starts changing its views of death. More hope, less grim reaper?
Is Dying About Control?
HBO’s documentary Alternate Endings: Six New Ways to Die in America, released Aug. 14, 2019, explores some of the ways Americans are finding meaning as life ends. And all of the ways show that the key is taking control of as much, or as best possible, of the end of life.
The documentary includes new types of urns, personalized obituaries, eco-friendly caskets, drive-thru funeral viewing, living wakes (which force people to say things to each other while still alive), space burials, green burials (in which the body is wrapped in biodegradable material in a shallow grave), memorials in an underwater “reef vault” and a seriously ill man who opts to take advantage of physician-assisted death to end his life peacefully and surrounded by family.
It’s all part of a $16 billion U.S. funeral industry that is being disrupted.
“The baby boomer generation has had a greater degree of control over their lives than any other generation before them,” Alternate Endings filmmaker Matthew O’Neill told Axios in an Aug. 10, 2019, article. “It’s because every topic that’s taboo — be it sex, be it drugs — it’s all on television and it’s all being talked about. And death is the last taboo.”
Is Dying About Hope?
The film was released around the same time as the book A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death by Dr. BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger was on The Washington Post’s Top 10 bestsellers list. The book includes practical advice (take your favorite quilt to the hospital) and wisdom (“love” is what matters most in the end).
Miller, too, addresses the idea of hope.
“I honestly believe that we, as a species, will do better if we come to terms with our mortality earlier in life,” he said in an interview on the Today show Aug. 5, 2019. “Get used to exercising hope within the framework of life being short and precious.”
Boomers do seem to be getting better about not only facing death, but also embracing it. The Conversation Project, Death over Dinner project, Death Cafes — all have been propelling us towards a more open view of death for nearly a decade. Remember how Swedish Death Cleaningbecame “a thing” two years ago?
Maybe It’s About Hope and Control
De-stigmatizing death. Having a “good death.” Those are the goals.
The United Kingdom’s Academy of Medical Sciences installed “The Departure Lounge” in a London mall in May. It was designed to look like a departure lounge at an airport, complete with all that baggage we have, with the idea of getting people to talk about death. “Why can’t we say the ‘D’ word?” the website asks.
Packaged versions of the pop-up installation are now being offered to community groups across the UK to start a national conversation about death and dying.
As a student in Georgetown University’s new Aging & Health master’s program, I was treated to a guest lecture in our first semester by Becky Hsu, an assistant professor at Georgetown, who spoke to us about the Chinese concept of a “good death.”
Hsu explained that she had spent time in China with a woman who had already bought the outfit she wants to wear for her death: pants, shirt, shoes, earrings and purse.
The woman has an embroidered pillow picked out for her head to rest on. She had a portrait taken that will be displayed at her funeral. All of these things are neatly wrapped in a cardboard box that she proudly shows off to friends and family.
Explained Hsu, “It’s a happy thing.”
By Ann OldenburgAnn Oldenburg, who started her career at The Washington Post and was a longtime culture writer at USA Today, is assistant director of the journalism program at Georgetown University. An advocate of lifelong learning, she is a member of the first cohort of Georgetown’s new Aging & Health master’s program.@annoldenburg
Shadow Work
Shadow Work by Richard Rohr
Making Holy
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
The shadow in and of itself is not the problem. The source of our disease and violence is separation from parts of ourselves, from each other, and from God. Mature religion is meant to re-ligio or re-ligament what our egos and survival instincts have put asunder, namely a fundamental wholeness at the heart of everything.
Robert A. Johnson (1921–2018) was an American Jungian analyst, author, and lecturer who studied at the C. G. Jung Institute. Many of Johnson’s insights have shaped my own work. In his book Owning Your Own Shadow, he explains how the shadow begins and how we grow:
We are all born whole and, let us hope, will die whole. But somewhere early on our way, we eat one of the wonderful fruits of the tree of knowledge, things separate into good and evil, and we begin the shadow-making process: we divide our lives. In the cultural process we sort out our God-given characteristics into those that are acceptable to society and those that have to be put away. This is wonderful and necessary, and there would be no civilized behavior without this sorting out of good and evil. But the refused and unacceptable characteristics do not go away; they only collect in the dark corners of our personality. When they have been hidden long enough, they take on a life of their own—the shadow life.
The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion or an accident that seems to have its own purpose. . . .
It is also astonishing to find that some very good characteristics turn up in the shadow. Generally, the ordinary, mundane characteristics are the norm. Anything less than this goes into the shadow. But anything better also goes into the shadow! Some of the pure gold of our personality is relegated to the shadow because it can find no place in that great leveling process that is culture.
Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously. . . . The gold is related to our higher calling, and this can be hard to accept at certain stages of life. . . .
Wherever we start and whatever culture we spring from, [most of us] will arrive at adulthood with a clearly defined ego and shadow, a system of right and wrong, a teeter-totter with two sides. The religious process consists of restoring the wholeness of the personality. . . .
Generally, the first half of life is devoted to the cultural process—gaining one’s skills, raising a family, disciplining one’s self in a hundred different ways; the second half of life is devoted to restoring the wholeness (making holy) of life. One might complain that this is a senseless round trip except that the wholeness at the end is conscious while it was unconscious and childlike at the beginning.
Reference:
Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (HarperSanFrancisco: 1991), 4-5, 7-9, 10.