Games \ Generosity \ Genes \ Grandchildren \ Gratitude \ Gravity \ Greed \ Grief \ Guilt \ Gullibility
Games are not things I excel at, either as a participant or a spectator. My grandmother played solitaire, my mother enjoyed bridge when my father died, my neighbor took up lawn bowling in her sixties because her new husband was a keen player, and another neighbor developed a fondness for watching pool in her nineties. I was hopeless at ball games, but I try to appear interested in rugby because my son-in-law, and hence my grandson, are both devotees. Mind you, the rules have changed so much since my schooldays I have to ask my daughter what’s going on. I understand the benefits of joining in a competitive game that tests the mind rather than the muscles, and I admire people who can spend entire evenings playing bridge, which has always seemed to me like yachting—a mysterious pleasure whose rules are hard to acquire and whose players shout at you when you make a mistake. I like the idea of spending hours watching a sport and being passionately involved and informed, but I quickly get bored and feel I should be doing something else. We’ve surely reached the age when we shouldn’t feel guilty about what does and doesn’t give us pleasure, and as long as it doesn’t harm others we are entitled to choose our own games, and play on our own if that’s what gives us satisfaction.
Generosity is when you stop keeping score and do something for the sheer pleasure of it rather than because it’s your turn to splurge or perform a chore usually done by others. A generous gesture should be spontaneous and can be small—making an unexpected meal—or large, like surprising someone you love with something they really wanted. Love is supposed to flourish on mutual acts of competitive generosity, which is fine as long as neither side tries to claim victory. And though the most delightful form of generosity may be giving to your children or grandchildren, you have to be scrupulously fair and make sure they all think they’re getting things of equal value, or you will make enemies of those you only wanted to please.
Genes aren’t always reliable. My mother was 103 and scarcely had a day’s illness in her life; my father died at eighty-one, having swum twelve lengths of an Olympic-sized pool. So in theory, their three children should live to 102 (according to a formula in which you add the ages at which your parents died, divide them by 2 and add 10), yet my brother died at sixty-three of an autoimmune disease, and my late sister and I had four kinds of cancer between us. Of course there’s no doubt we’ve all inherited certain features and characteristics of our parents—I see my father in the mirror when I shave, and I certainly have his geniality and impatience, as well as my mother’s ability to forget unpleasant occurrences—but to explain is not to excuse. We can and do blame our parents for most things, as our children blame us for passing on attitudes and behaviors that others censure, but nobody can yet determine how much is biological and how much is due to the environment in which we grew up. My view is that we should credit the genes for the good stuff we can do nothing about, and accept responsibility for the less good in the optimistic hope of changing it. I know it sounds like the AA program, but hey, if it works, don’t knock it, right?
Grandchildren, apart from being adorable and adoring, at least when they’re young and haven’t been let down (not by us, of course), are completely fascinating because we can study them with a certain amount of distance. Of course we took a huge interest in our own children’s intellectual and physical growth, but there was so much else going on—not least our own careers—that being objective about their achievements and failures was almost impossible. But you can watch your grandchildren develop their own personalities and see them react to their siblings and friends in such an individual fashion that you are frequently caught between marveling how alike they are to the parent you gave birth to and wondering where on earth they got that appalling temper (obviously from your child’s partner). Because we forget so much of the important details of our own children’s upbringing, it often seems as if our grandchildren are slower than they were at learning how to read and write, though their ability to handle anything with a touchscreen is extraordinary. But of course we keep our suspicions to ourselves, as even the slightest whisper of criticism or questioning their rate of development will lead to estrangement and maybe even denial of access, which would be an unimaginable deprivation. See also Encouragement.
Gratitude is something we have surely learned not to expect. As my father used to say, we should be grateful not to be kicked in the teeth. Being grateful isn’t the same as being polite—kids aren’t made to write thank you letters the way we were, which may be bad manners, but those letters were only for form’s sake, to ensure the supply of presents didn’t dry up, and were hardly on a par with the gratitude we feel when we’re helped out of an unexpected jam, or are the recipient of a surprising act of kindness. Different again is the gratitude we feel when we’re told we don’t have a fatal disease, or we get an unexpected bonus. We soon realize that the person or company who gave us the good news was just doing their job, whereas true gratitude is surely the pleasure we get from a generous and helpful action that is individual, impromptu, and offered without thought of gain. Of course we are grateful for our health, the love of friends and family, and even the qualities (and possibly the legacy) that our parents bestowed on us, but unless you’re religious, to whom do you express your gratitude? You could simply offer heartfelt thanks for a generous gesture, and hope that if you were called on to perform something similar, you, too, would receive the gratitude you deserve.
Gravity, sadly, is all-conquering at our age and can only be defied with artificial aids or rigorous self-discipline. Eventually everything droops, even earlobes, which in some people grow pendulous. And while a woman can choose from a variety of bras, no one has yet invented a support for man boobs. Some older men have a problem with their testicles swelling and swinging, which gives a misleading impression of their potency. It’s usually harmless fluid (but worth checking out) that can be drained, though it will probably return. As for the aging penis, droopy seems to be its natural state, and though there are pills that can make it perk up, which should be good for all concerned, introducing medical intervention an hour in advance of foreplay requires a degree of planning (and optimism) that can be off-putting for both parties, as well as inducing mild hysteria at the absurdity of it all. But it’s the belly where all our indulgences decide to hang out: You can have liposuction, but if you’ve managed to avoid Botox, why bother with more expensive treatment whose effects are hardly long lasting? Of course we can and do fight nature, but assuming we’re not talking about clinical obesity, isn’t it more tempting to acknowledge that gravity has us comfortably beat?
Greed is a compulsion that affects all but the most saintly of us. Its appetite for more only grows with feeding. It’s by no means limited to food and drink: Who has not, having once tasted praise, love, riches, or power, wanted more of them? It may be an evolutionary instinct, an urge to cram more in of whatever’s available in case of dearth, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse. Greed and laziness are two things you can’t legislate against, and you can be certain that when people shamelessly exploit legal loopholes for personal gain, most of us are too lazy to protest because part of us wishes we’d done it, too. You would think that in our maturity we would know when we’d had enough, and stop wanting more than we could possibly need or use, but sadly that isn’t often the case. We decry the greed of company bosses who regularly receive raises and bonuses that are not only hundreds of times more than their workers’ wages but are grotesquely unrelated to performance, yet we are still greedy for a better deal on a new TV or a little boost to our pension, while grumbling if we have to pay more taxes. We could, and morally should, fight this compulsion and say we don’t want more, but we tell ourselves we’re only looking for what we deserve, and would never seek to deprive others of their just share. This is merely the difference between the gourmet and the glutton: The former claims to have a sophisticated palate while the latter is just a greedy bastard.
Grief See Bereavement.
Guilt is a chronic condition you can either blithely deny you suffer from or succumb to entirely. Of course we have all done things we should feel guilty about, and aside from those religious people who go to confession and atone with a few Hail Marys, most of us tend to cover our sins in layers of excuses until their sharp little edges are muffled. We may (or may not) make reparations but we quickly regard ourselves as rehabilitated, until a further sin—often affecting those we love (for we are not always perfect)—brings on another attack of guilt that requires a flurry of apologies before both the offended party and the guilty one return to equilibrium. But this cycle is easier to live with than those who insist everything is their fault. If there’s an argument, they take the blame; if an accident occurs, they insist they caused it, whether there’s a riot or a refugee problem they feel guilty about it. There are few things more annoying than somebody who feeds on blame. It’s pure attention seeking, and they are right to feel guilty.
Gullibility shouldn’t affect people like us, who got where we are today by knowing our asses from our elbows. Yet we’re always reading about people of our age who are conned by shoddy builders or bogus financial advisers or, most frequently, internet scammers. We tell ourselves we wouldn’t be gulled, but if we were alone, or lonely, and someone came to the door, flashed some form of identity we’re too polite to check properly, and offered to sort out our leaky guttering for a few dollars in cash, would we resist? Would we say no to someone who insisted he wasn’t trying to sell us anything, he just wanted us to be aware of an unparalleled investment opportunity that someone with our experience would recognize as safe and sensible? And while of course we delete those emails that tell us we’ve won some lottery or are owed some tax refund, if we would just give them our bank details, who can ignore the offers of insurance that are so much lower than anything we’ve been quoted? It’s hard enough to put down the phone on a cold caller, especially if they’re raising money for a charity, but we’re all gullible in the face of a bit of flattery and an appeal to our better nature.