The
old rusty Nail
AN E-JOURNAL FOR OLD PEOPLE
A Perspective on Old Age from an Old Person
RUSSELL BURTON
The dictionary defines creativity as ‘to cause to come into
existence; make; originate; to bring about, give rise to; cause’. But,
creativity is much more than defined in a dictionary it’s what it does that is
just as important. Of course, what it
does is exercise the brain and the older a person gets the more the brain needs
to exercise. Exercise is necessary to keep our body muscles healthy and
exercising the brain is even more important.
You know the old cliché ‘Use It or Lose It’.
Retiring form your life’s work is rewarding as it allows time for people to do what they wish to do within financial and legal limits. But all of this leisure time can be dangerous, not having the demands of work prodding you all day. I say dangerous because if the brain gets turned off dementia is waiting and eager to keep it turned off. And, our mind is our most important physiologic function.
A good example regarding the death of a lazy brain was my father into his retirement from the federal government. He was a very smart man but mentally very lazy. His brain only worked at his job. He retired when he was only 55 years of age having some 38 years service on the job. Yes, when he began working for the government a person could start employment at 17 years of age. His job always required considerable mental tasking that mostly he hated. So, as soon as he could he retired.
Retiring form your life’s work is rewarding as it allows time for people to do what they wish to do within financial and legal limits. But all of this leisure time can be dangerous, not having the demands of work prodding you all day. I say dangerous because if the brain gets turned off dementia is waiting and eager to keep it turned off. And, our mind is our most important physiologic function.
A good example regarding the death of a lazy brain was my father into his retirement from the federal government. He was a very smart man but mentally very lazy. His brain only worked at his job. He retired when he was only 55 years of age having some 38 years service on the job. Yes, when he began working for the government a person could start employment at 17 years of age. His job always required considerable mental tasking that mostly he hated. So, as soon as he could he retired.
Upon retirement he had two jobs. One was retail in a liquor store and the other was selling used cars. He loved both jobs and it kept his mind busy. But, when he left those jobs to go fishing, dementia raised its ugly head and he entered a home for assisted living where he died.
This family history has always bothered me because my mind is the most important part of my life. My life’s work was research working for the US Air Force as a scientist, retiring as Chief Scientist of two Air Force Laboratories. Of course, this line of work requires lots of mental exercise conducting original research on human subjects some of which were fighter pilots. The work was rewarding and I would have continued working for several more years but circumstances prevented that from happening. So, I retired when I was 68 years of age.
Cognizant of my family history, I concentrate each day on exercising my brain. Well, so far it seems to be working for I am 80 years old and I do brain stuff each and everyday. I am using myself as an example not to be bragging but because I know me pretty well. My mental exercise each day consists of doing a Sudoku, reading mostly nonfiction books, and writing. I love to write. Upon retirement, I got into creativity of painting, mostly water-based medium.
But, my interests turned to writing as I started to write a novel at age 70 and I published it this year on Amazon. If you own a Kindle, I-pad, etc. you can download it for $5.99. The title of the book is Mary. When I sell one thousand of my books I will have broken about even expensive wise.
Scientists in particular are the most vocal about how the ‘best work’ gets done when one is young – you know in their twenties and early thirties. And, in support of that ‘wisdom’ is the fact that Nobel Prizes are given to scientist of those ages. Well two things I have to write about that are: Lately, some recipients are older and only younger scientists are allowed time to pursue their thoughts. The latter is especially true in institutions of higher learning for the longer they are employed there the more responsibilities they must assume.
I was fortunate in that most of my entire employed life as a scientist I was allowed, in fact encouraged to conduct only research. And, my work in the field of applied physiology got even better as I became more experienced and increased my knowledge base.
So, I think the critical ingredient in creativity is being allowed the time to try. And, of course in retirement, time to try is readily available. Not only is the time to try waiting for us to use it, but it must be good therapy for an aging mind.
My latest pursuit in creativity of course is writing this blog that I enjoy very much. In fact, I try to write something everyday. Of course I am blessed with the desire to write, in fact I am almost driven to sit down and bang away on my desk top computer.
After writing my novel, I began to write an essay that turned into 65,000 words on my understanding about ‘faith in God’. The more I wrote on this subject the more I found that I had more to write as information on the subject jumped out at me almost on a daily basis. Anyone interested in the draft (has not been edited) is welcome to it via email. Just send me your email address and I will send it to you. Once again my email address is burton.russell@att.net.
I am reading the book Mortality by Christopher Hitchens which he wrote as he was dying of esophageal cancer. He was an atheist who wrote several books on the subject. I mention it here because he too loved to write. He was a regular contributor to Vanity Fair and considered as one of the world’s top intellect. As with me, writing put him into another world that I am sure gave him some relief from the nasty subject of death.
Of course as I read his book, I was constantly forced to recognize my luck in growing old. He was in his early 60s when he died. And as he noted, he was much too young to leave the party.
Yes, creativity comes in other forms than writing. I mentioned painting that I indulged in for several years. I still belong to a painting group (coop of local artists) where I volunteer once a month to work in our gallery. I am amazed at the wide variety of art that we sell and all of it requires creativity. So, I suggest if you do not know of anything you can do creative, then by all means visit an art gallery that exhibits a vast array of art.
My intent here is to let us old people know that it is never too late to learn and it is never too late to become creative. I have no doubt that creativity is food for our brain. And, our brain like all of our organs needs nourishment.
Once again, it’s time to sign off another article for the ‘Ole Rusty Nail’. Remember I want to hear from my readers on your thoughts and perhaps ideas on subjects that I might write on. Also, if any of you write and publish your work here please feel free to contribute.
