You Vote! To Read or not to Read?

This past week was spent sorting through quotes and articles I have collected over the last several months - fodder for future blog posts. Several topics piqued my curiosity. This week I’m sharing a brief paragraph about some of those topics. I am turning them over to you - which speak to you? What would you like me to explore more fully in a blog post?

Breaking Free From Chronological Time

In a Psyche article, Vicky Grut wrote, “In our daily lives we have no choice but to experience the world in chronological order. We can’t fast-forward through the bits that we know will be awful, or rewind to moments we especially enjoyed. Our days are driven ever onwards in lockstep with the clock. But when we think, and when we write, we can throw off those bonds. We can race back through decades, leap into the future, stretch a day and make it last a whole book, or dispatch a century in a couple of paragraphs.”

In my writing, I slide into childhood and then escape to the present. I can write three pages about a moment in time or barely mention years of my life. In retirement, time has taken on a completely different context. I sometimes have to stop and think about what day it is. Some days fly by, others are as slow as molasses.

How do you view time these days? 

Nostalgia: Past, Present and Future

Have you ever spent time with a loved one who lives far and felt pre-emptively wistful that they would soon be leaving? Then, you have experienced anticipatory nostalgia. According to Krystine Batcho at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, you are missing what has not yet been lost as it is still taking place. This differs from anticipated nostalgia, which is having the foresight that you will one day be nostalgic for a specific experience. Anticipatory nostalgia occurs in the present moment. The emotional pang of anticipated nostalgia has yet to come.

Another research study found that anticipated nostalgia is predominantly positive. It is bittersweet, with “sweet” outweighing the “bitter”. Anticipatory nostalgia places a stronger emphasis on loss, and it is about missing elements of the present that will be absent in the future. Anticipatory nostalgia has been linked to brooding.

What comes to mind when you think of anticipated nostalgia?

The Mind Palace

People who display remarkable feats of memory (repeating a long series of numbers, for example) often use a technique called the ‘mind palace’, also known as the ‘Roman room’ and the ‘journey method’. This technique is ancient and involves imagining a building, such as a palace or a house, and associating each item to be remembered with a location in that building. One moves through the imagined structure room by room (thus the ‘journey’), finding the items in question.

Retired philosophy professor Crispin Sartwell writes about caring for his 98-year-old mother, who had increasingly debilitating memory problems. For twenty years, she managed to compensate for these problems successfully. As the internal structure of her memory faded, she began to use her home as her memory. She held on to her memories through Post-it notes, first systematically, then chaotically. His mother’s memory went from being an imagined place or palace inside her to becoming a part of her physical environment.

In her last years, my mother also had notes scattered in drawers, vases, and between the pages of books - how to use the remote, who gifted her a specific present, the name of her doctor, and my phone number. She might not have remembered the information - but she always knew where to find the corresponding note.

Many of us have seen loved ones do the same. What are your experiences?

The Four Seasons of Retirement

Our retirement began last September, and we have come full circle, aligning our lives to fall, winter, spring, and summer. We’ve learned a few lessons along the way. Our annual budget will need some adjustments as we move into our second year of retirement; some things we spent more on than anticipated. Summer, we have learned, is our most expensive season. Luckily, we have a surplus in other categories of spending. We travelled for ten weeks in the fall and six weeks in the spring - only realizing after we came home that we had missed our favourite West Coast seasons. Recently, in a friend's Facebook post,  I read she had spent some time setting up her writing and submission schedule for the fall. Seasonal planning? This has to be a better planning tool than my haphazard schedule of late! 

Do the four seasons play into your life planning?

Remembering the Good Times

In her book Sandwich, Catherine Newman writes, "Everything hard has been smeared out into pleasant, pastel memories." Interesting, as my memories of difficult and bad times are still vivid.

A little research revealed that we often remember negative or traumatic experiences over positive ones. Negative events are also often remembered more vividly than positive ones. 

Laura Carstensen, a psychology professor at Stanford University, shares, “Many psychologists think that this has evolutionary roots; that is: It’s more important for people, for survival, to notice the lion in the brush than it is to notice the beautiful flower that’s growing on the other side of the way,”

There is an age factor at play here. “Emotionally speaking, the worst time in life appears to be the 20s and 30s,” shares Carstensen. “The older people get, the more they’re able to live in the present; and so, focusing on positive information makes that present feel good.”

Do you remember the good or the bad?

Wherever You Go, You Take Yourself With You

“It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”  — Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

In my early twenties, I moved west, 3,800 kilometres away from my parents, a directionless life, and much unhappiness. I thought that running away would reward me with a fresh start. In some ways, it did. But much of what I tried to leave behind was tucked into my suitcase. 

Now, 40 years later, I have left my home of 35 years and moved full-time to the island. What did I take with me? What did I leave behind? What are your experiences of leaving the past?

Now it is up to you! Click the link to share which topics interest you and I’ll explore those in a longer blog post.

Or you can respond to me in the comments below. Please feel free to also indicate any other topics that you’d like me to write about in Ageless Possibilities blog posts.

Survey now closed.