OT: Staying young, staying fit, staying engaged in "now."

 

My goal in going to the big bash at the park yesterday was not to come away with specific, planned, premeditated photographs. My goals were more over-arching: To have fun, to get some good exercise, to have a hands-on experience with my craft, to see what other generations consider fun and relevant, to polish my skills at asking for portrait collaborations with people 1/3rd my age, and to tweak my camera handling skills with a relatively new camera. 

Too often I see or read that some people my age are content to sit passively and reminisce about "the good old days." A recurring theme is that the younger generations don't want to work as hard as "we" had to. That the "golden age" of existence just happens to coincide with the time in the old guys' lives when they too were young, vital, filled with hope and able to move through life with vigor. A time before they gave up trying.

I started my day yesterday with 30+ other competitive swimmers and one coach at our weekly Saturday morning swim workout. I'm one of the older swimmers there but there are no demarcations between what the more experienced swimmers tackle and what the younger ones try. We all swim the same workout. We go on the same intervals and we do the same yardage. Several of my peers who are in their early 70s are incredibly fast and in great shape. They are the elite group. They've never stopped pushing and excelling. No one would ever think to relegate them into "slower" lanes or truncate the workouts for them. And, importantly, they would not stand for it. 

We had a visiting college swimmer with us in the pool that day. She's NCAA fast. One of the coaches remarked, "Kathleen is really crushing it today!!" Failing, I guess to notice, that "Bob" Smith, a former college swimmer, now in his late 50's was matching her speed; stroke per stroke and lap per lap. And they shared a lane. Another swimmer, overhearing the coach said, "Of course she's crushing it, she's 18." 

Only one of us is going to be the fastest person in the pool. That person will finish each interval first. Touch the wall first. But in the end we all do the same workout. And, when we walk away from the pool you can look around at the participants and find that no one is overweight. No one is physically hobbled. No one is gasping for breath after a two mile plus swim. No one is exhausted. The 70 year olds and the 20-something competitive swimmers have mastered one of the important parts of staying young and that is staying fit. Continuity of effort. Daily practice.

Another interesting factoid about the swimmers I know in our program and in other masters programs around Austin (and the country) is that swimming isn't the only exercise they undertake. Most also do weights. Many are still doing triathlons and so are integrating biking and running into their mix of exercise. I do weights but I'm also a big fan of long walks. Not on an alternating schedule but daily. Along with swimming. 

So, when I left the house yesterday to go photograph at the park I packed a small camera bag, put on a wide brimmed hat and parked my car a couple miles from the park. There's a great hiking trail from our center of the town lake to Pease Park. I hit the trail and got walking. It was hot yesterday. It hit 90°. I took it easy on the walk over. Then I spent nearly 3 hours walking through the park looking for photos of revelers to take, talking to photographers in attendance whom I knew, and mostly soaking up the ways in which the event feels different every year. When I felt my interest wane I hiked another couple miles back to the car. So, 3200 or more fast yards in the pool followed by about three and a half hours of walking. 

By the time I got home I was fully recovered from the swim and the walk and ready to go out to dinner with friends. That's how energy should feel as one approaches one's 70s. Not hobbled, slowed down, weak or fatigued. But there is no magic bullet --- and fitness, I believe, has very little to do with genetics. It has mostly to do with developing the discipline to get stuff done. To not look for artificial borders between generations. To go swim when it's freezing outside. To put on a jacket or grab an umbrella and walk, happily, through the rain. To enjoy the music of Billie Eilish as much as that of Thelonius Monk.  Or to enjoy the movies of Ben Stiller at least as much as those of Louis B. Mayer.

The other secret I've learned is to stay engaged in a way that reflects current society instead of pining for some rosy version of the past which probably never existed in reality but seems nice, emotionally comfortable and unchallenging. When I worked in Santa Fe two weeks ago I worked mostly (almost entirely) with people who are younger than me. Some far younger. But I had no presumption that they would treat me differently or that I would, uninvited, "bestow" some hard won (but obsolete) advice upon them. Instead I saw them as peers. As equal working partners engaging for the benefit of the client. We worked together, ate together, drank together and shut a few restaurants down at the end of the night together. No deference for age and no reverse deference for youth. 

All of these things are learned behaviors. Discipline is a learned behavior. Inter-generational cooperation is a learned behavior. It takes intention to build forward from "trying" into a habit of succeeding on a day-to-day basis. 

It's the same with diet. It's the same with keeping up with current art, movies, literature, and social events. We don't just stop the clock at some point in time at which we were most coddled and secure and then wait to die. That just doesn't make sense. To live well it's necessary to live in the moment. Now. 

Yeah. We got a lot done yesterday. Stayed out too late at dinner. Drank some red wine. But none of that was an excuse to miss this morning's workout. So I didn't. And this afternoon there's some walking to be done. And this evening we've got dinner with the kid. We'll talk about current events over dinner. Not my "understanding" of current events but his, based on having spent a week in Chicago getting smarter and better informed for his data science company. 

I think the biggest disservice people my age can visit on themselves is to capitulate. To give up. To spend their remaining time turning the past over and over again. So much better to get up every day and go out of your house to look at the world in a fresh way. 

In my business of photography there is constant stylistic change. If I had been resistant to change I'd still be trying to sell a style I liked back in 1985. But my clients, all much younger, would be resistant to buying the style, or hiring me. I need to be able reflect current tastes in my work. And you are only capable of doing that by staying current. Listening to younger generations. Always seeing new work. Not by relentlessly looking at work by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.... Or HCB, et al. 

Cultural fitness is just as important as physical fitness when it comes to aging gracefully and well. And all it takes is daily practice and an open mind. Pretty simple.