“Money is like an arm or leg – use it or lose it.” — Henry Ford
“Perspective: use it or lose it.” — Richard Bach
Is Doing the Right Thing a Privilege or a Responsibility?
Given the ongoing collapse of representative democracy in the US, orchestrated by Donald Trump, it’s hard to think of any topic that’s more important. This is partly our failure because, as members of representational democracies, we did not do more to prevent it.
The expression “use it or lose it” applies to health and skill, but not to other things to which it could be applied, such as emotion, initiative, motivation, empathy, self-respect, and responsibility, just to name a few. Does it also apply to democracy?
Intellectual Ability and Exercise
I am declining physically but growing mentally. My memory might be dulling but it’s hard to tell. If you question your memory too much you can come to almost any conclusion.
I remembered, forgot, and remembered again the name of Meryl Streep. I thought of her while watching John Turturro in the series Severance because she and John stood above me on the stage of the Yale Repertory Theatre when I was a teenager. I was bathed in a mist of John’s spit as he acted out some drama I now entirely forget. It bothered me that I could not immediately remember Streep’s name, but it does not bother me that I’ve forgotten everything about the performance.
I’m a physicist and you might think theoretical physics requires great memory. In some cases it does, but not always. A person tends to remember what’s most relevant, and if you work with the important things, then you remember them. In my case, the range of important things is limited, so the more I work with them, the better I remember them.
The challenge is avoiding the confusing alternatives other people put forward. Many ideas claim to be significant but are not. This is made difficult by the preference of the physics community to generally complicate things. Physicists, who are poor writers to begin with, write for a select audience, usually an audience of one. The greatest problem in physics is not remembering what is true, but forgetting all that is not.
The progress I make in remembering technical details reminds me that exercising specific aspects of memory improves memory generally. Although there are aspects of memory that rely on certain areas of your brain, the general task of remembering is a whole-brain process. It’s important to keep all of the memory areas working; that means more than just recalling facts.
Physical Ability and Exercise
I have back pain that comes and goes. It’s related to a fractured vertebra from a flying accident. This has led me to give my back extra support when bending over, which I’ve been doing by holding on to a cabinet or table top.
This habit has had an effect that’s opposite from what I intended. It’s made my back weaker and my back pain worse. The support has prevented me from strengthening the muscles around the old injury.
Most of our movements involve many muscles, and the muscles of our backs are some of the most complex. Unless you have an extensive exercise regime you won’t exercise all your back muscles. In particular, I don’t normally exercise the muscles that I use when bending over. By not allowing and strengthening my normal movement I was losing function.
I’m stating this as a general rule but there are many exceptions. Movement becomes looser with exercise but damaged joints can be damaged further. And there are slow and fast twitch muscles that respond differently. There are some exercises you will only do intentionally, such as cardiovascular exercise, but many of the muscles you use regularly can be exercised by doing more conscientiously what you do normally.
To retrain myself I consciously avoid using supports. Instead of holding a table I will just touch it for balance. Even that may provide too much of a crutch. I suspect people who use canes and walkers are similarly losing function. I now consciously avoid using supports, and my back has quickly improved.
Emotional Ability and Exercise
Less commonly discussed, or never discussed, is the relationship between emotion and ability. We don’t equate a lack of emotional exercise with a loss of emotional ability, but we should. As people age they gain experience but their environments shrink. They are less physically and emotionally mobile.
A lack of emotional exercise is stultifying. This is why people of different generations keep to themselves. This is partly due to no longer needing to understand people of other generations, and partly a general lack of empathy. This applies to cultures, races, and genders too. If we don’t exercise our understanding of other people, we lose the ability to understand them.
We are poor at judging ourselves objectively. That might seem obvious, but we could develop these skills which we use to distinguish between how we’re changing and how things around us change.
We need some scale on which to measure ourselves. This scale might be subjective and imperfect, but if you can’t measure the change in your attitudes, then how would you know if your sense of self is growing or shrinking?
Anyone who’s been in an intimate relationship knows the kinds of stretch and strength they require. And even if you haven’t, you should anticipate the emotional skills these kinds of relationships require.
We go through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, partnership, and family, before entering a parent-of-adult-children phase. Each phase involves emotional rearrangements with new characters and responsibilities. The grown-up children phase is the last phase, unless you consider elderhood to be a phase of its own.
There’s not a lot of emotional growth after 50 in the typical Western family. We have no Tribal Councils of Elders, no Shamans or Wise Women, and our culture is less for it. As a result, most people become static and socially irrelevant when they retire. Even those who find meaningful pursuits will experience little emotional novelty, at least not in the West.
If you want to keep growing past 50, you’re going to have to create opportunities for emotional exercise. You might become an entrepreneur, or get involved in politics or community. You might get divorced, start another family, or switch professions. It seems like many people do something like this, and perhaps this is the reason. You have to do something if you want to avoid becoming irrelevant.
I started writing in my 50s and returned to physics in my 60s. I’m now 70, still parenting my teenager, playing a role in the lives of my clients, and looking for close connections. With no role models and little time, I have three choices: become irrelevant, be reckless, or expand actively. The choice is obvious.
Can We Lose Our Ability to Symbolize?
We can segregate intellect from emotion if we want to. We can become heartless bosses, drunken alcoholics, bitter singles, or all three at once. Such people are unhinged.
Two New Books on Dreaming. Support the books. Sponsor the campaign...
