My father used to say: “I know what it’s like to be young, but you don’t know what it’s like to be old.” Well, it looks like that undeniably brilliant put-down for youthful opinion may have reached its sell-by date, as the earned stripes of age begin to show themselves on my shoulders, and face. Yes, as I pen this particular Munson musing, it’s the eve of my 60th year on this marvellous planet, on my surreal adventure, and my eighth birthday in this fabulous country and culture. I will be 60 by the time you read this submission, which I intend to be a personal celebration of both the minutiae as well as the magnificence of maturity, as well as something of a challenge to us both.
Clearly I’m not the first person ever to be 60 years old, but this is the first time this particular ‘manifestation’ has got to this point on life’s odometer, a fact this body seems more pragmatic and accepting about than the mind that lives in and about it – which feels anything from 5 to 75 on any given day, or even moment. Forgive me then, if you’re an old timer who’s past this particular milestone, urging me, the over-excited whippersnapper, to catch up and get over it; please permit me my fascination and introspection on this literally once-in-a-lifetime situation, and see perhaps if you concur with my realisations and remarks.
To the child me, 60 seemed old, actually ancient. Men of my grandfather’s age did not wear shorts and trainers, for example, presumably thinking that this was the attire of children or conscripts, preferring instead a stately woollen suit and a single pair of good leather shoes? He had his habits, his routines and a chair of his own, and Grandma knew how to attend to his simple needs that I recall as modest, simple and a pleasure to be involved with should you be invited to join him on an errand, or help with his hobby.
This is not the world I would expect to live in today’s and my native UK, but am delighted to see some remnants of, here in Portugal, where I currently wear trainers and shorts, and see many of my expat peer group (and older) similarly dressed, with baseball caps even, that will have many old Stans, Bills and Georges spinning in their graves. I remember the tobacco, handwriting and strong aromas of these elders, and feel very different to them, even if I am partial to a Werther and gladly carry a handkerchief, if I ever remember to.
They seemed ready for inevitable ageing and death, or if they didn’t, the rest of us assumed it, didn’t we? An inevitability we ourselves are less comfortable with having reached their years, albeit with remarkably improved life expectancy and the possibility of greater fitness in old age, in just two rapid-paced generations.
When I think of my own mortality, as one is near enough forced to do (if not by ourselves then certainly others!), I recall, oddly perhaps, a physics lesson that I was subjected to when around 15 years old, one interminable and indistinct afternoon around 1980. Our terrifying teacher Dr Foot described how a tennis ball thrown into the air (not a board rubber on this merciful occasion) would stop dead, still, if only for a fragment of a second, before returning to the ground, according to gravity. This intrigued me, offering a rare and delightful moment of educational revelation, and remembered to this day, offering another view on the path of life that is generally seen as a straight line from left to right, cradle to grave, from zero to three or four score years and ten.
I’m happy to note that I have enjoyed the upward flight of my life, where that still point of the ball has already been reached, and I am on the return flight to earth now, where gravity constantly invites us all. I am of course hoping nonetheless that that moment wasn’t too long ago, as I bring to bear the lessons learned in that frenzied first leg, in these next decades of applied wisdom. Maybe. We’ll see.
In any case, and on the preferably slow journey home, surrendering the young man’s urge to drive as fast and far as I can, I sense that I am already paying more attention to what I believe we came here for, which is to become more intelligent. And by this, I do not mean IQ or the vain celebration of intellect. I mean the reduction of suffering, the mastery of life’s circumstances, and the giving up of my childish ways – even if I do wear the ‘plimsolls’ our grandfathers would have scorned.
One quick and grown-up win I’m enjoying on the eve of year sixty is partaking in something of a digital detox inspired by my recent conversations with one Eric Bourgault, founder of DigiPause, a “nature-based wellness-by-design concept for the digital age”. Eric is a remarkable man, whose vision is inspired by his personal journey through 20 years of online addiction. Recording special interviews with him for the Portugal Club, it became clear that his interest in the healing power of travel and the age-reversing benefits of digital detoxing, could easily find a helpful home in Portugal’s culture of tourism and renowned quality of life.
In conversation, and in his modesty, I had no idea that he’d spearheaded the first National Day of Unplugging in Canada and the first Digital Wellness Day in India (discovering this myself online), but our inspiring chats had me suddenly give up mindless phone scrolling at bedtime, leaving my phone outside the bedroom overnight, and no reaching for my previously precious phone immediately on waking up.
Thanks to him and his mix of inspiring wisdom and compelling knowledge, I now start the day sitting still in the garden with a cuppa, like an old grandad as it turns out, with my two dogs, and I even have a favourite chair. Gone is reflex scrolling when waiting in a queue, as is ‘checking’ my phone as soon as I’m sitting down in the car or at a café table.
Believe me, I get why pretty much everyone is addicted to their omnipresent, omnipotent phone, barely able to go five minutes without doing something ultimately useless, albeit hormonally satisfying. And if not that, switch on the TV, eat something, drink something, or otherwise avoid the horror of doing nothing, AKA ‘boredom’, or more ominously: being with what ‘comes up’ in their mind and imagination, for which they have no useful response except avoidance.
This is the realm of the young, dare I say immature, and this is presumably why the Portuguese government has decided to ban mobile phones in schools up to the 6th grade. I know what it’s like to be young, as did my dad, and we both know as old guys, these kids won’t be happy. And meanwhile I have found new meaning in that biblical passage: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (Mrs M says it’s clearly a work in progress).
Phones are toys for children and I’m finding it’s a great test for this nearly 60 year-old man to see if he can sit still, without having to fiddle with something or distract himself, like his grandfather did before him, and the dreadful advent of the mass media, social media and ‘so-called’ smartphones. Dare you digital detox, or at least become more discerning with your precious and finite attention?
See my interviews with Eric Bougault below:
