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Calories \ Caution \ Celebrations \ Celebrity \ Chance \ Change \ Charity \ Children \ Chores \ Competing \ Confidence \ Conscience \ Cooking \ Cowardice \ Curiosity

Calories should, we are frequently told, be counted religiously if we want to keep fit and avoid obesity. Which is fine if you like making lists and you’re obsessive about weighing your portion of breakfast oats and consulting your guide so that you can give yourself the joyous news that you’ve got 1,894 calories left for the rest of your day—but can you rely on the guide’s accuracy? We’ve lived through enough changes of “expert opinion” to be mistrustful. If eggs are bad for you one week and good for you the next, can we be confident that the number of calories they supposedly contain is scientifically precise? Of course we all cheat a little on our own, “forgetting” to count that tiny bit of butter that would otherwise go to waste, splashing a bit more gin into our glass that takes it over the “standard” measure, but how were those figures printed in bold on labels arrived at? When car manufacturers cheat on their emission and consumption figures, are food and drink manufacturers immune? Just worrying about this question probably uses as many calories as a brisk walk, because the brain expends an amazing amount of energy, but who adds that to the reckoning? Let’s face it, if you’re going to obsess about your calories, it’s best to embrace your competitive side and join a fitness group, because doing it on your own is (a) ineffectual, as you’re bound to lose patience and cheat, and (b) rather sad.

Caution creeps up on you. We’ve all learned, over the years, to be cautious about things like weather or economic forecasts, the opinions of so-called experts, members of the opposite sex who insist they want a no-strings relationship, and anyone who offers the investment of a lifetime. But there’s a difference between being cautious about advice and cautious about action. Say someone proposes you accompany them on an adventure vacation in a place you’ve never visited. When you were young you would have accepted without a second thought, right? Now, you weigh up the disadvantages—the cost, the tedium of getting there, the dangers and discomfort of roughing it in a place unprepared for tourism, the amount of pills and potions you’ll have to pack, and the risk of running out of essential supplies—and you think, fuck it, I’d rather stay at home. On the one hand you are conserving your resources and will probably live longer by avoiding bandits and mysterious infections, on the other you are depriving yourself of an experience that could enhance your life with a jolt of the unusual. Being sensible about taking risks is one thing, being cautious about the unexpected may verge on cowardice. It’s the perennial conflict between instinct and intellect that we all have to face, with one consolation: If we err on the side of caution, at our age we are used to living with regret.

Celebrations of an old friend’s life, whether they’re living or dead, are like that extra bit of chocolate: You grab at it greedily, knowing you’ll probably regret it afterward. You accept an invitation to a memorial because you want to pay tribute and comfort the family, and also because you want privately to celebrate your own survival and see how you compare to those contemporaries who are left. But when you’ve schlepped yourself over to wherever the event is taking place, complaining at the cost and difficulty of getting there when you’d be much more comfortable at home, where your own wine is far superior to that served at the party, and knowing there’ll never be enough food worth eating, you encounter all the problems involved in facing up to your past. People look vaguely familiar but you can’t remember their names and think it’s rude to ask. When you introduce yourself they can’t hear you, so you have to shout; they look blank, but announce their own name, which you can’t quite catch. If you do find someone you know, you quickly discover there’s very little to talk about once you’ve lied about them not having changed, and exchanged lists of ailments. If it’s a large party, the noise is deafening, the speeches inaudible, and you wonder who all these young people are who couldn’t possibly have known your aged friend, and while some of them may talk politely to you, they have no idea of your reputation and probably are only there for the booze. Old acquaintances seem to have become bent and boring, never mind losing their sense of humor: Either they don’t appreciate your attempt to add levity to the proceedings by making witty comments, or they’re too deaf or drunk to care. The opportunity such events offer of catching up with people you once held dear can be hollow and disappointing—but of course you will go on attending them while you can, if only to show you’re still around.

Celebrity is a sunbeam of recognition from gods we don’t believe in. When I was young, I told myself that the thrill I got from talking to somebody famous was because they had achieved something that was beyond the reach of ordinary people, even those (like me and you) with unlimited ambition. There was a reason they had achieved celebrity status: They were the best at what they did, supreme at the summit of the mountains the rest of us were waiting to climb. Now we are more experienced, and perhaps a touch embittered after getting a little lost on our way to the top, we can be grateful at not being celebrities, and be at ease in their company. When once we mocked their desire for privacy, and told ourselves we could cope with the scalding heat of fame as long it was accompanied by a reasonable fortune and the ability to get a table in fashionable restaurants, now we mock their frequently chronicled failings, pity their inability to sustain lasting relationships, agree with those who ascribe their success to chance or corruption or clever marketing rather than talent, and unworthily rejoice when their reputations are shredded. We’d still have dinner with them, though. A fallen angel still has wings.

Chance and luck are different, in my opinion. Chance begins a process, luck plays a part in completing or defeating it. You can’t rely on chance, but you can make your own luck: Chance may afflict you with an awful disease, luck—and getting the right medical attention—may see you cured. Experienced people like us should be able to recognize luck, in the sense of it being an opportunity, but only a wild optimist, bordering on fantasist, would count on being rescued by chance in the sense of the random operation of forces beyond our understanding. The trouble is few of us learn from our own mistakes, let alone other people’s, and we persist in confusing the various meanings of chance in the hope of getting out of trouble. We welcome a chance meeting that leads to new opportunities as a sign of fate being on our side; if it all goes wrong, even the most mature of us is apt to deny responsibility and blame factors outside our control. We all know, and tell others, that things shouldn’t be left to chance, but that doesn’t stop us doing just that. It’s a sign of our gambling nature, and possibly our laziness, but assuming we’ve avoided plunging our families into destitution, we will doubtless continue to avoid practicing what we preach.

Change is difficult and uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean we should avoid it. It can be forced on us by unexpected circumstances: an accident, an illness, or a malfunction in a machine we rely on, such as a car or computer. If your partner suddenly breaks a leg and needs you to abandon your usual activities to take care of them, you’re going to show what an adaptable, tolerant, responsible person you are, and change accordingly. The odd thing is, the older we get the more we grumble about change, yet we often face the greatest change of all, from independence to dependence, with little or no preparation. I suppose it’s because it’s something we don’t want to think about too much, as we’re secretly confident we’ll cope when we have to. Like always.

Charity can be immensely satisfying if you’re working for one or supporting a worthy (and effective) organization with your philanthropic donations, but it can consume you with guilt when you don’t have much money and are deluged with requests for help. One elderly woman killed herself because she couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of competing demands from good causes, but that shouldn’t stop us from giving altogether. Charity contributes to our well-being: It allows most of us to feel better about ourselves for a relatively small outlay and very little effort. When you see pictures of individual victims of war, famine, natural disaster, birth defects, epidemics, or simple poverty, your instinct is to offer them money. You know that some of it will be siphoned off by corrupt officials, that the aid it buys will be exploited by criminals, and anyway won’t be nearly enough to help all those in need, but even so it’s better than doing nothing. Charity is a poor way of righting the wrongs of the world, but the victims deserve our support, as do the people who work for them, if only because there is little chance we’d go out and do what they’re doing.

Children: You knew you were doing something right when your children moaned at you for being so restrictive, and your parents gently (but pointedly) criticized you for letting your offspring run wild. Now that we are grandparents we can spoil our grandchildren with impunity, but how do we develop a relationship with our offspring that is supportive, tolerant, and resilient enough to withstand the inevitable fights? Especially when they move back in with us because they can’t afford a place of their own, or they’ve lost their job, or broken up with a partner and have nowhere else to go. We’re glad to see them, of course, and for a while their presence makes a welcome change. But when the new routines we have established as empty nesters are interrupted or disregarded, and the spaces we have taken over are suddenly occupied, while we love our children and are full of sympathy for their predicament, it’s hard to avoid just a touch of resentment and frustration at the way we’re being used. Doubtless they feel the same.

Our generation prides itself on having a very different, and much warmer, relationship with our own children than our parents had with us. We set boundaries for our kids to bounce off, we tried not to make threats that we couldn’t or wouldn’t carry out, but perhaps the biggest difference was that we explained the reasons for the rules we wanted them to observe, rather than simply laying them down. My childhood relationship with my parents was based on me accepting their authority; my relationship with my children was based on justifying whatever authority I wielded. If we can move on from the fact that our parents’ behavior toward us was irritating, unfair, and often irrational and accept that they were far from perfect but convinced they were doing their best, we should try and persuade our own children to see us, too, as loving but flawed. When they’re young, children want their parents to be infallible; by the time they’re teenagers they know we often make mistakes; when they’re adults we must hope the mistakes they may have made help them to regard us more tolerantly, especially if they’re sharing our space. Closeness means you can confront your problems together, which is some compensation for the strain caused by enforced proximity.

Chores are jobs you want to get out of the way so you can do something more creative, but they can also give you a sense of achievement. None of us wants them to define our day: We have moved on from the time when routine tasks, such as the housework that was expected of women when we were young, are considered fulfilling in themselves. Now that we have reached the age when we don’t have to clock in to work or answer to bosses or do jobs we know are beneath or beyond us, we are entitled to take a break and do little or nothing once we’ve laid the table, sorted out the fire or boiler, and dealt with the washing. The trouble is that doing little or nothing soon strengthens the acid of Puritan guilt. We bring in the firewood or get the ironing out of the way, and then what? Why are we in such a hurry to be done with the chores when we haven’t decided, or simply don’t know, what to do with the rest of our time? Shouldn’t we take things more slowly, to allow further plans to develop and mature? There are those who say the urge to deal with little matters quickly is a product of the internet culture, and particularly the pressure to respond instantly to emails. But it surely goes back to the time when the provider was forced to stand aside for somebody younger, and invented a list of tasks to keep themselves occupied and make them seem indispensable. We’re always in a rush because we don’t know what’s around the corner, but if there really isn’t something you’re desperate to do once you’ve taken out the trash, remember that the more chores you do, the more chores there will be for you to do, and take your time.

Competing might be an evolutionary thing to ensure we survive as a species, but you would have thought that when we’ve reached the age of watching our grandchildren grow up, we’d stop worrying about whether our car will look as good as those of the other people collecting them from school, or whether our clothes are the right mix of hip and casual without looking flashy or dowdy. We carry on competing in ways that can be subtle (“Oh, you still go to the store? I buy everything online”) and crude (“I wouldn’t be seen dead in one of those bargain supermarkets; their wines are so hit-and-miss”). It seems we can’t stop ourselves competing against each other, even though our place in the pecking order has long been established. Either it’s a habit we can’t kick, or a way of proving we still have a kick in us, that no one can take us for granted. Competing is perfectly healthy provided you don’t let it become a consuming and destructive lust for a victory that is beyond your financial or physical grasp; and providing that you limit the competition to people of your own age and situation. The young will find you competing against them laughable, and everyone will find you competing against easy targets contemptible.

Confidence seems to become more brittle as you grow older. It would be nice to think that we keep it polished like a favorite pair of shoes, so that it’s flexible and resistant to stains, but often an unexpected knock puts a big hole in it. Experience should make us resilient, but it doesn’t matter whether you’re a politician or a poet, criticism hurts and confidence suffers. We tell ourselves we should be grown-up about it and not let ourselves be affected, but what sensitive person like you or me doesn’t think there might be some truth in what our critics are saying? It’s taken me years to be confident that the way I think and feel is shared by enough people to justify me writing a book like this, but I hope I’m confident enough to listen to differing views, for ignoring them would be a sign of insensitivity and inflexibility. Mind you, only a saint or a tyrant maintains their confidence in the face of fierce opposition: Myself, I need a good sulk and a stiff drink before my confidence levels trickle back to normal.

Conscience may soften with age, like almost everything else, but there’s a thin steel core that is both flexible and indestructible. Years of using and abusing the moral code we call conscience teaches us what we can get away with, but as with bad behavior however much we have compromised there are still some basic things we don’t do (unless we’re totally depraved). Conscience is what keeps us civilized, makes us predictable to our children, acceptable to our partners, and reliable to our friends. Far from making you a moralizing bore, it’s actually something to boast of and celebrate, like having your own hair and teeth.

Cooking contributes hugely to my well-being. I’m not particularly good at it, and I promise I’m not going to give you my favorite recipes, but I started to explore cooking when I became a vegetarian in my early forties, and in my late seventies I’ve found it embodies almost all the qualities that make our lives enjoyable. You can be spontaneous, inventive, even thrifty when using up food that would otherwise get thrown out. You can follow a recipe, improve on it (or ruin it), or improvise: It’s the perfect occupation for the amateur and gifted dilettante. Your work has a purpose and isn’t just a chore; its aim is to satisfy your own appetites and, if cooking for others, to give pleasure and show off your expertise. You can go looking for particular ingredients or you can produce stuff you’ve actually grown. You can use the latest fancy equipment or make a virtue of simple tools; you can create a huge pile of dishes or gain enormous credit by clearing up as you go. You can take as much time as you need and no one will accuse you of wasting it. Cooking engages the brain, and requires a wide variety of discrete physical and intellectual skills, such as measuring, timing, chopping and slicing, mixing ingredients for anything from pastry to a roux, seasoning, and tasting. It also involves a reasonable amount of exercise, and can legitimately be accompanied, and often improved, by alcohol. You can be as creative as you’re capable of being, and if it all goes wrong you will get sympathy rather than censure. What’s not to like?

Cowardice is something you redefine as you grow older. It’s different from caution: When we were young, to be cautious was a sign of sagacity, whereas to be called a coward was the greatest insult. But after decades of learning what we can and can’t cope with, it doesn’t seem cowardly to avoid involvement in contests we can’t win, it’s only putting our experience to sensible use. If, like me, you were bullied at school, you felt like a coward for not standing up for yourself, even if no one named you as such. Having weathered the experience, and hopefully learned how to deal with similar situations in adult life, I no longer think of myself as a cowardly boy, just a survivor. Conscientious objectors in the First World War were called cowards, but eventually came to be seen as men of courage and principle. While we would all hope to protect ourselves or our families if we came under attack, avoiding heroics and pointless posturing is a sign of maturity. If gangs of macho youths are squaring up for a fight, you don’t step between them, you call the police. If some drunk taunts you, you don’t retaliate, you ignore them. We have all suffered humiliations, and with luck they have taught us when to retreat and when to fight back, when to negotiate and when to compromise.

I think that for grown-ups, cowardice isn’t running away from what others threaten to do to you; it’s refusing to accept responsibility for your own actions. A small example: I was at a party given by an architect friend with a fiery wife. I saw him in close, and doubtless innocent, conversation with another woman in an adjoining room. For some drunken reason, in that mischievous, mildly malicious spirit that enjoys provoking confrontation between contented couples, I told his wife what he was up to. She marched in, smashed his guitar over his head, and marched out again. He was understandably puzzled and asked me what had provoked such an attack. Instead of telling him that I had caused it, I said I had no idea. I felt like a coward, and I still do.

Curiosity can be life enhancing when handled with the delicacy we have acquired over the years. Showing a friendly interest in a complete stranger—a shop assistant or a new bartender in your local bar—and encouraging them to talk about themselves, which everyone enjoys doing, melts their professionalism into something quite friendly, once they’re confident you’re not a police officer, but merely (in my case) a Harmless Old Fellow. People can surprise you and confound your expectations. I asked a guy in a phone shop about the elegant Chinese calligraphy tattooed on his arm, and he revealed it was his birth sign, a present from someone he was no longer speaking to, and to avoid negative thoughts he was going to have it covered by another tattoo, rather than having it removed. An entire life story in a brief exchange that made me feel better about humanity in general and the young in particular.