“My Way” is the title of a fairly maudlin song by Frank Sinatra. It allows both successful and failed seniors to reflect on the importance of being unique and surviving in a complex world. Perhaps it concentrates a bit too much on social achievement, but most old people can relate to the basic narrative concept.
I am no different, although I do twist focus inward. I am less concerned with what I did than with what I thought or learned. I am less insistent on displaying the past then I’m using my insight to evaluate the present.
My way has come to mean myself taught wisdom. I have read extensively, but never to absorb insights. No, I have my own insights all the time, even today. I treasure them. Reading is an argument, a way to test my insights against those of others.
Some of this is just childish joy at the unexpected. I often metaphorically slap myself upside the head and exclaim “why didn’t I understand that earlier?” But the primary emotion is the happiness of discovery, not the gloom of opportunities lost.
The result of all this is a skeptical mind. When I read great philosophers, or shallow journalists, I argue with them. Likewise when I hear people express their own opinions.
This is not to say that I want to be a nasty know-it-all contrarian. I realize that my own insights often are incomplete or wrong. And if I learn better, I rejoice in the intellectual surprise.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 