We’ve all heard “this is the first day of the rest of your life.” True enough. It is also “the last day of your life so far.” And, of importance to those of us elders, it may well be “the best day of the rest of your life .”

As you pass the 75-year mark, most surprises are not likely to be good ones. Especially if they involve our own body or mind. We adjust, but in spite of protestations, we will never again be 30, no matter how well we eat or how much we exercise. At any time we may lose all or part of some facility we have taken for granted .

That’s inevitably depressing, especially in a culture that always looks forward to a “new, improved” future. The way we handle it is often to focus on nostalgic memories, or by being as obsessively short-sighted as possible centering on hobbies, friends, or family. “Carpe diem” comes to mean much more than simply seizing the day to make tomorrow better. It’s far more useful to seize the day to make the day better .

Peace of mind in a kind of meditative way is achieved by treating each moment and each day as the last. Leaving as little dangling and undone as possible every night when we go to sleep. Very little will be better handled tomorrow .

It would seem a sad outlook, but I found it astoundingly cheerful and comforting. Part of my deteriorating mentality, no doubt .

There have always been”windy” politicians and priests. Probably ancient Egyptians and druids at Stonehenge had to listen to long boring speeches saying the same things over and over, forever and ever. I’ve sat through my share at schools, churches, businesses, and various community events. Not to mention the occasional over opinionated guest. 

But none of them hold a candle to the current crop of TV commentators and internet personalities. These folks could win contests in spouting empty blah. Some can go on and on for hours using code words and empty slogans essentially saying they don’t know more than anyone else. 

“Orators” seek to convince, and some of these descendants of the classic Greeks and Romans abound in selling things in a consumer culture. It’s a job. Others, however, are simply filling time as if they were musical groups playing a boring symphony. 

It’s probably a sign of the times that these blah blahian cheerleaders can be taken seriously. That probably indicates a great loss of competence in the assumed audience. There must be a few gems among them, but those are easily lost in the vast desert of sterile wordiness. 

Fortunately, it’s still in my power to ignore them as much as possible, enjoy reality, and – if I need stimulation – read books – usually older and less crammed with fluff. Fluff, blah, whatever – emblematic of the new age 

I am sure I have mostly full control over my eyelids. I have less control over going to sleep. Once I get beyond my own body, all bets are off. The world is a lot bigger and stronger than I am, other people rule many areas of it, and change makes the future truly unknowable. 

In so many ways, rationally, I am a helpless speck in time and space. Yet I do not feel helpless. Often just the opposite. It’s an awful lot like the old (useless) debate between free will and predestination. I need to live and act as if I what I do affects my life. Most of the time, I know it does. 

I suspect the main disconnect in modern life – leading to anger, stress, and withdrawal – is simply that we try to know too much about too many things. Our natural need and belief and control extends to all our fields of knowledge. Superstitiously we think we can control the roll of dice, the outcome of games, the very health and existence of the planet. 

In some ways, that is a graceful illusion. However it often leads to disappointment and bitterness. In reaction, we feel totally helpless. On the positive side, like accepting predestination, being helpless can be comforting. ”Not my fault”. 

Perhaps we should try to know less. Perhaps we should care less. Perhaps _ like the free will debate – we have no choice in the matter. 

Since Euclid, it seems, official philosophers have tried to formulate systems similar to his geometry. Not only have those attempts generally failed miserably, but it has also turned out that any philosophy – like any geometry _ only holds true in certain circumstances. For Euclid, the original framework only works on a flat plane _ curvature ruins the perfection. 

Philosophy itself is dedicated to finding the “best” way of life. Now, life itself is a hell of a lot more complex than a flat plane. And the fundamentals shift constantly and often completely.

Most people are encountering crisis frequently, requiring a major adjustment to goals and means. A few undergo a total rebirth where what once seemed clearly true becomes irrelevant or even evil. This is how consciousness works. 

Remarkably, an awful lot of us admire the unwavering diehard fanatic who never adjusts philosophy to fit changed circumstance. Instead of seeing him or her for what they truly are – crippled fools – we claim it is a badge of honor to maintain the same viewpoints forever no matter what. 

Any rigid fragile philosophy soon becomes encrusted with adjustments very similar to epicycles in the Ptolemaic system. Maybe it can creak along, but the elegance has vanished. 

Me? I think philosophy is necessary and should be pretty sticky and permanent. But I also know it must be fluid enough to handle change.  

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” True. Yet before that first step, prudent  travelers prepare. Food, water, footwear. Maps, way stations, lists of things to do or see. Sometimes getting ready takes longer than the actual journey.

As I get older, I find myself becoming more and more “prudent.” Often to the point of paralysis as I carefully examine everything before I do it. Then, I am often surprised at how simple and rapid the actual journey, task, or project turns out to be. 

I think such prudence used to be properly reserved for the elderly, aware of their increasing limitations and frailty. Now it seems that the young have also become somewhat risk-adverse, planning and thinking and not just insouciantly bounding off to adventure good or bad. A loss for such individuals, robbed of spontaneity out of fearful visions. 

Even as an old man, I try to fight my sensible inertia. Weather forecasters command I stay inside. Dietitians clamor I must eat only water and leaves. Doctors want “moderate” exercise, hopefully in a nice safe hermetically sealed gym. I ignore most of it. 

A journey of one mile requires little more than the gumption and effort to get off this couch. 

“Wrong” is a fine strong word that has definite meaning yet encompasses the ambiguity of existence. It implies a clear binary choice based on an entire context. After all, you can only take a “wrong” fork in the road if you are seeking a particular destination.

If I don’t have any goal in mind, “wrong” is pretty meaningless to me. But in meta context – say from the viewpoint of a god-like biographer or self-certain preacher – what I do may be – even unconsciously – very wrong indeed. And -here is the tricky part – the next God or biographer may see things quite differently. 

Nevertheless, it’s a convenient term. I can easily decide that you and your crew are all wrong. Or that a certain table is wrong for the dining room. Or that I was wrong to linger in Margaritaville so long. Or…

Since we all know the shiftiness of such judgment, wrong is actually also quite a mild thing to call someone. It almost automatically implies that there is another side to the issue. Even another possibly valid side. 

I suspect that if AI could truly think, concepts like “wrong” would drive it crazy. But as it is, AI will simply misuse the language. As do, unfortunately, most of our own preachers and politicians.

Like all our abstract concepts, being elite has two major distinctions. One is how you see yourself. The other is how others see you. In either case it simply means you are better than most others. 

Ah, but better in what way? I believe in elitism, although my elite (of which I surely consider myself a member) is composed of intelligent, knowledgeable, good and wholesome people of any place or age. In our society, the commonly accepted elite are those with money and power. Or consumer good taste. And I am surely not one of those. 

Like so many words, definitions and especially connotations change over time. Once the “elite” were people to be emulated, perhaps to fear. At least the fear remains. 

In changing social times – and this is certainly one of the most chaotic social periods in history – “elite” begins to lose its value. The elite represent stability – the “upper crust.” Cream cannot rise to the top if the milk is constantly shaken.

So I hide in my internal definitions, happy in my nearly autistic self-reflective dreamland, as a member of an aristocratic elite of one gazing at the rest of the world. A way to get through life happily, if they don’t send me to the asylum with the other looneys.  

In the American system, a jury is not supposed to be some kind of logical supercomputer determining “the truth.” It is designed to be a final check on absolute government power. Reflecting whether “guilt” has been proved. Inevitably, determining “guilt” also requires a wider and hopefully balanced (12 citizens’ minds) view of the particular law itself. 

In spite of the best efforts of lawyers, laws can be ambiguous things, often related to implied intent. The act of someone hitting another person on the head with a hammer may be completely illegal. But if it is an accident at a workplace? The worst efforts of lawyers create laws that are a mess to begin with. 

In the United States at this time, laws must be passed by appropriate legislative bodies. They must survive court tests to be sure they fit within an accepted (weasel word) interpretation of constitutional limits. All well and good. The majority of “cut and dried” crimes are resolved by plea bargain or dismissal well before a jury is convened. 

At that stage the real purpose of any jury is to provide a measure of empathetic common sense reflecting the social agreements as they actually exist. Determining guilt is a satisfying means to this end. It is the final arbitration which a prosecutor or judge should not overrule. It may be wrong in “truth” but surprisingly often is absolutely correct in “guilt.” 

Instructing jurors that they are logical computers rather than intelligent citizens is a disservice to all the US stands for. 

In classic cultures, one of the major punishments among the elite was to “exile” a citizen. Presumably that made the troublemaker someone else’s problem. He (always a he) was also assumed to hate every minute of it, being away from everything he liked and people he knew.

Exile in the modern world has largely transformed into becoming an “immigrant.” The practice has also percolated downward to the lower and lowest classes. While in current civilization, a wealthy immigrant is treated as the incoming elite exiles always were, the new migrants are a more recent difficulty. 

The usual places to live are stuffed, we have cut into mortality so deeply and made our food supplies so secure. That may, of course, change. Until then, what do we do with the migrations? 

Most people hate to move, they like what they have until it is intolerable. In spite of mythology, most American immigrants like the Irish only came here because where they lived had become literally unlivable. 

Now as then most residents have always wanted to ” send them back.” They are never like us. They often for example are lazy and dirty and work too hard for low pay cleaning houses and laundry. Send them back!

But at the moment there is no “back.” Probably no solution. 

As in much of life, only an “outcome” currently unknown. 

In my youth _ the nostalgically recalled glorious 50s _ we were taught to respect democracy and rights. For what kept a democracy from becoming mob authoritarian rule was a strong belief in individual rights and the checks and balances to keep them active.

Over the years, it often seemed that what one was allowed to do became more and more restricted. A form of zoning closed in as life became more and more crowded and individual powers became (potentially) greater and greater. At the same time, it became clear the social pressures to do right were less and less powerful, and government (in the form of bureaucracy) was forced to take up the slack. 

Unfortunate. But far less disturbing than the rise of the Christian church militant, which believes its heavily armed followers must enforce _ through “democracy” _ its religious rules on everyone. It firmly believes that nobody sane should question its own interpretation of what God wants. 

In the ’50s, we hated anyone who would try that. Our parents had just fought Hitler. We dutifully went to church and believed in family – but we mostly laughed at those who did not and left them alone. 

The political class gaining control now – either truly or cynically – want none of that. I and everyone else should hop when they shout – because their God says so.