A Working Fantasy for Old Age
Opening new vistas with the computer...
Like most good ideas, it came to me in the shower. For some reason, I do my best thinking there; my best imagining. Maybe it’s the warm water gently playing on my skin? Whatever, my mind breaks free and I can indulge myself in all kinds of weird scenarios.
Today, my weird scenario centered on how my efforts — to learn the computer while at the same time trying to write about it — were shaping my imagination. I found myself daydreaming and constructing this scenario, which I will present to you. It’s way out and improbable, but I hope you’ll see it’s not impossible and even has some logic behind it. It’s based on an idea I hold, that says that ‘evolution’, while always responding to the buffeting of random events, still has a direction for mankind. As a species, we are not only programmed, (in the spirit of ‘Mister Spock’), to survive and prosper, but do so in the most comfortable, low stress, way possible. Just think of the automobile; how it has changed in 100 years. A car is not biological, true, but it’s is a good analogy. Slide behind the wheel today, and compare it with that of the Model T. The car’s ‘cockpit’ has evolved, (or has been shaped under the biological hand of man), to fit us more exactly; with more comfort, more ease and safety. I also think of my computer; sometimes I’ll wake it up in the morning and find it sporting a new and better operating system. I did nothing other than configure it to “check for macOS updates and automatically install them.” The rest has been taken care of while I’m asleep.
We know evolution hit on a new wrinkle with the coming of the hominids, just 5 million years ago. That wrinkle was the expansion of the ‘new brain’, the ‘upper’ parts, or the cerebral hemispheres. And then, with the arrival of early man, (2 or 3 million years ago), and those small hemispheres already in place, the damn thing really took off. Those cortices have worked well, grown in size and complexity, and helped our species cover the planet, and survive and prosper in any environment, (maybe too well!). Certainly we are very sure that man possesses more cerebral tissue than he knows what to do with; most of it is unused; every once in a while someone like a Rembrandt, a Mozart, or an Einstein puts a corner of his brain to work, but vast regions still lie neglected and unexploited.
Then, only about 60 years ago came another new wrinkle, and inaugurated a new amazing succession of events. In the mid-1950’s, easily in my living memory, I witnessed the introduction and the explosion of the transistor. Overnight, it seems, tubes became obsolete as silicon chips took off and developed, (evolving with breathtaking speed). Soon came computers, and today we have different emerging forms of 'A.I.', (Artificial Intelligence.) (The name of the A.I. that came with my Mac computer is 'ChatGPT'. I know there’s a lot of worry about A.I., but I am embracing it and practicing with it every chance I get. I know ChatGPT is not flawless, but I believe I can use it very profitably. Like everything, you just have to understand and account for its limitations.)
So back to my shower and my daydream. Like most people, I divide life into phases. For labeling convenience I’ve chosen three: childhood, adult, and ‘old age’. Approaching 82, I’ve reached that last stage. I am not in denial. Each stage of life has its challenges, and these challenges are well-discussed, written about, sliced and diced in all manner, and is the stuff of inspirational and ‘How To’ books.
Last night I woke on schedule from a restful sleep, (assisted by my CPAP), and sat for a moment in the dark by the side of the bed, before getting up to pee. I realized the breeze on my legs was unpleasant and I wanted to turn off the little fan on the floor. When I was a child or an adult, I would just stoop down and turn it off, unthinking. Now I have to start a dialogue with self: “My balance doesn’t work well automatically; I can’t rely on it; I better give some thought to where I will be in space; I better brace myself if I don’t want to smash my forehead into the corner of the night table as I bend down.” This is how I must talk to myself in my old age. My challenge at this age is learning to accept that reality, but nonetheless explore ways to work around that reality. In that effort, my computer is my ally.
As I stand with the water cascading down my back, I ponder: What can help me with this challenge. For me, having never been blessed with an innate sunny disposition, the challenge of old age boils down to staying alive, avoiding despair. I am able to count my blessings and they are manifold. Sondra has been my loving wife for over 50 years, and our relationship has only improved with time; I have children and grandchildren; and a comfortable retirement — all truly priceless. I consider myself among the most fortunate of men, beyond measure. And yet I do experience the losses that come with getting older. I have fears of dementia; and the looming loss of function in so many areas, with its attendant humiliations, troubles me. I think of de Gaulle's comment about old age being a shipwreck, and I wryly remind myself that “the experience of old age is nature’s way of getting us to accept death”.
(Did I really come up with that adage? It seems rather too clever for me, so I asked ChatGPT, who said it. ChatGPT tells me it’s attributed to Joan Didion, thus bursting my bubble, but sparing me the embarrassment of being overtly plagiarizing. I didn’t recall reading any of her books or seeing any movies she wrote. “Joan Didion's exploration of such themes is a hallmark of her reflective and introspective style,” says ChatGPT. I could see how our mind-sets could be similar.)
So I’m mulling all this in the shower and suddenly 'the light' comes on and my daydream becomes illuminated. (This point is always dangerous; pity those daydreaming souls who are not well-grounded, particularly while they’re still in the shower!)
What if this new instrument of mankind, the computer, is also part of some overall evolutionary plan? I could see how this plan could work, and I could see my own role in it. I possess a ‘not inconsequential’ knowledge of the brain (from my career as psychiatrist, my longtime vocation) and I know a lot about the computer ‘world’ (my avocation, plus a track record as a software developer). I am not a world expert on the brain, nor an expert on the computer, but I am among a relatively few people on this planet who knows something about both fields. Perhaps there’s a book to be written about uniting the mind with the computer, particularly in the ‘old age’ stage of life.
As I slipped further into old age, and experienced the increasing frequency of 'senior moments' ('what did I want from the bedroom?'), the greater reliance on 'routines', on 'to-do' lists, on Post-it reminders, found 'normally' in anyone after eighty, I wondered if the computer could play the same role in my declining memory and mental functioning as my reading glasses play in my eye's presbyopia, arriving on schedule in my late 40’s, still an ‘adult’. Can I use both my spectacles and my computer to compensate for the loss of functioning in both — the lens in my eye and the brain in my skull. Both are impairments of functioning, programmed to occur, built in, a natural consequence to time. Could I write about it? Would anyone be interested? Not likely.
In contrast to the vast majority of my ‘old age’ cohort, most of whom want nothing to do with computers, and even pride themselves on being able to live a happy and fruitful life totally in avoidance of them, I enjoy the challenge of working with the computer. I had decided after retiring from my practice that I would try my hand at writing; not to earn a living but simply because I enjoyed the process and challenge of writing. In line with that, I also decided to become proficient with every computer function I would ever need to help me write. Therefore I have been learning Page on my Mac, (it’s like Word in Microsoft). I once described Page as a ‘word processor’, until the clerk in the computer store looked at me with a puzzled expression, then laughed. (ChatGPT later told me the term ‘word processor’ had become dated, since every computer comes with that kind of application built in.) I have been learning Numbers, (like Excel in Microsoft), because it lets me put things in categories I can visualize, and having things in categories helps me understand. And I have been learning Keynote (Powerpoint), which I find very useful, as a scrapbook or portfolio to quickly place related items, whether images or text. I learned how to scan, and how to print, and how to get around on the Internet. And I learned how to capture all this information from my screen, simply using my keyboard and mouse. And I learned how to search, both the Internet and my portion of ‘the iCloud’; where, for a small monthly payment, I rent as much memory as I will ever need. And most importantly, and hardest to master, I learned how to manipulate my data, and transfer it from application to application, and store the manipulated data for later retrieval. In short, I have been on a mission to become a virtuoso of the computer — not virtuoso to all the computer and its many applications and components, but virtuoso enough to do what I need to do, day by day, easily, smoothly, efficiently; in order to craft something like what you’re reading, doing so by communicating within and among my computer-related applications and resources.
And so, back to the shower and this light that came on and illuminated the day-dream playing at the time in my mind. This realization — call it an ‘epiphany’ — was that every person, (like me), in ‘old age’ could really use a fable, a self-delusion, a working fantasy. And immediately, I realized what would be mine, what would serve me best. I would strive to reach something like immortality!
Hey Roy, hold on. Whoa… Easy Trigger.
Okay, if not immortality per se, at least something close. How about being able to recapture a day-to-day existence that is always exciting and potentially rewarding. How about something that offers you, in your ‘old age’, a ‘political horizon’, (akin to what our State Department wants offered to Palestinians). A place, a state, where your youthful expectations, excitement and anxieties can be present, and you might experience life like a preteen attending your first dance party. And if you could not reach life immortal or eternal, you could at least reach a point where it’s possible to utter, like Faust, "Verweile doch, du bist so schön!”, and bring down the curtain. But having done that, go not to the devil, but rather go to the utter uncertainty of an unknowable space-time stretching off into the future, a place ever unknown, no different than the blank discomfort-free span of time stretching back from your birth to the start of the universe, (and who knows, before?) Please understand, by ‘bringing down the curtain’, I am not speaking of suicide; it’s more like “that’s enough, I’ve finished making the effort; I’m no longer going to hold up the curtain”.
So how do I do it; how do I actualize this personal fable that comes up in my daydream? My working fantasy, my self-delusion, tells me that by my (continuing) work with the computer — learning to better operate it, practicing on it like a musical instrument — is good for me, is healthy for me, and is a type of wholesome brain exercise that promotes 'neurogenesis', the birth of new brain cells. I don’t know whether this fable of mine is true or not; (otherwise how could it be a fable). Nonetheless, however it ultimately plays out, I have adopted it. I’m on the quest, carrying out its task, right now, out of the shower.
The idea behind 'neurogenesis' is not a fable; it’s a concept that has also arrived in my lifetime. When I was in medical school (in the 1960's), I was taught that we came into the world with our life-time complement of brain cells already in place; no more were to be created, what you had on day one was the most you were going to get. Neurogenesis did not exist. In fact, not only were new ones not coming, every day some would proceed to die off; as far as neuron numbers, it was downhill from birth. Your only consolation was that, (conservatively), you had a lot — 80 billion brain cells, and by means of their interactions, or synapses, about 100 trillion connections. (That was where the electrical thinking ‘work’ took place.) Being so flushed with neurons made life less strenuous, so you could sacrifice a few hundred or thousand and relax with a martini. It wasn’t going to affect you in the long run. (Of course, all bets were off, if you happened to have a neuronal disease like Alzheimer's or associated pathologies. Or — who knows - unless you came into the world with some sort of neurobiological susceptibility to alcohol, a diathesis in medical jargon, a weakness that was part of your basic neurological endowment.) That’s how medicine conceived the brain when I started my training, but the idea was turned on its head before I stopped practicing. The evidence had come in, and neurogenesis was proven to be a scientific fact, in men as well as mice.
So putting all this data together, and seeing in it, evidence for some degree of logic behind my working fantasy, I am powerfully motivated. I am pushed to (a) learn even more about the computer, (a learning I enjoy and gives me a warm feeling of accomplishment), and (b) train myself to master it, with effectiveness and efficiency. (It’s truly like learning an instrument; the learning must be put into practice to stick.) I believe this process creates new neurons. If nothing else, it’s mental exercise; any exercise is good; you lose it if you don’t use it… It’s all a belief system that’s perfectly set up to be a positive feedback loop (for me!)
For all those reasons, it’s definitely the working fable I choose to use — call it a self-delusion, it’s okay. I am free to define my own brand of 'neurogenesis' and nothing prevents me from believing that those newly born brain cells, or even old ones now re-positioned, are not opening up, for me, new vistas in my 'old age'. What prevents me from thinking: “For my brain, it’s the triumph of frontal lobe ascendancy.” What is a brain meld: it’s only a form of ‘computer assist’ — just like ‘pedal assist’ on my E-bike — it’s designed to ease my strain and extend my range.
But you’re a clever reader, (or you would not be this far along), and you realize, I’ve left out the catch. There’s always a catch. (Surprise).
Okay smart ass, you’ve envisioned life on (your) perfect terms. Everything is now directed by your cerebrum, which has undergone some degree of neurogenesis in response to your learning and practicing with your computer. You don’t have wires protruding, and nothing has been implanted in your head; if anything, the reverse has happened; your mind has implanted aspects of itself inside the computer; maybe you’re beginning to think like a computer — it could be framed that way. All well and good, everything moves along smoothly... and then, splat, you get run down by a taxi, or (more likely) knocked off by another bicycle. How do you account for those disasters in your working fable?
You can’t. Chance, bad luck, karma, destiny… It’s always going to be part of the picture. The most you can hope for is that neurogenesis ‘factors in’ safety, and caution, but doesn’t overdo it, such that you end up in a state of paralysis, afraid to go out. The best you can do is play the odds, determine the risk, calculate the reward; all of which, more or less, is frontal lobe employment, where you’ve banked your life’s savings.
And now let’s kick it up a notch. Let’s flavor my daydream, my working fantasy, with some spice. Let’s add some ‘perfect timing’. Remember, I’m looking at man, (looking at myself), from a historical perspective. Man ages and goes through stages with his body: muscles weaken, joints stiffen, hair (if it’s still present), turns grey and white. His mind loses its sharpness, he easily forgets and has trouble retaining. But now, propelled by his working fantasy, he has a 'work around' for his mind. He promotes neurogenesis in his old age by using the ‘computer assist’ link, forged with its help. And this effort comes at a crucial time.
Recall, if you will, that I earlier told you that hominids and mankind brought to flower those higher brain centers, the cerebral cortices, that essentially exist only in mammals, late comers to earth’s collections of fauna. What I didn’t dwell on, was the fact that at this stage of life, old age, parts of the ‘old brain’, our reptilian brain, the repository of our emotions and reflexes, start to lose their zip. And I believe we can feel it — as I did sitting on my bed in the dark — sensing my lower brain (containing all my balance reflexes) peeling away like a bad sunburn, causing me to talk to myself and try to shift those functions to the logic centers in my frontal lobe.
One part of our lower brain, in particular, the hippocampus, situated deep, under our temples, is programmed to stop working. How convenient for us old people. Just when you consciously ‘want’ to create new nerve cells and new pathways, your brain is putting out a tissue message that stuff is deteriorating. You better pump in some neurogenesis, particularly now, if you want to ‘work around’ the deteriorating effects of time. We know that the hippocampi shrink with old age and lose neurons, a normal process known in medicine as ‘hippocampal atrophy’. (Actually I think they could have come up with a more neutral term, like ‘presbyopia’, which has a solemn church-like aura or connotation. We call them reading glasses, don’t we? Not visual atrophy specs!)
So there you have it: my working fantasy to achieve a kind of immortality. Why not embrace it; as Bubbie said, it can’t hurt. And maybe, just maybe, it will help. Life will be uniquely planned and scheduled, directed by the frontal lobes, instead of that war-mongering limbic system. Existence might be cool, not hot, but also not boring. Life will roll out, day by day, like a complex blueprint for software construction, with all aspects coming in on schedule, a true ‘system design document’ called life — until, without warning it stops, or you take your foot off the gas, preferring finally to cruise to a stop.
That’s my morning shower’s daydream — that I won’t be like HAL in the movie '2001', with ‘age’, (not Dave), up in my head, pulling out this or that neuronal junction. Rather, my daydream envisions a new baby in a glass orb, drifting in space, eyes open, large, observing the universe…
As I indicated from the very beginning, I am both trying to learn the computer while at the same time trying to write about it — all from the standpoint of someone my age. It kind of kills two birds with one stone: (a) giving me a topic to write about and (b) giving me the impetus to better understand the computer, as I use its resources to write the topic. (Plus, I think I am writing about something I know, always a bonus for anyone trying to write.) Feel free to let me know what you think. I am also in X/(Twitter), and you are welcome to follow me there. Thanks.