Laughter \ Laziness \ Listening \ Lists \ Loneliness \ Losing \ Love \ Luck \ Lust \ Lying
Laughter is life enhancing as long as you don’t choke. There are few tragedies that don’t have their funny side, and the good taste we have acquired over the years allows us to point them out at an appropriate moment. Or possibly an inappropriate one: Another advantage of age is that you can frequently get away with being outrageous, though the charm wears off if you do it too often.
Laziness should not be confused with idleness or wasting time, which are necessary indulgences to conserve our mental and physical strength. Laziness consists of not doing things that need to be done because you no longer care about the consequences, or rely on others doing them for you. It can happen when you’re depressed or lonely and of course all right-thinking people should resist and fight it. Just try telling them so.
Listening is one of the most important things we can do in our maturity. It’s the most effective form of therapy, as well as the cheapest, as everyone likes talking about themselves to someone who is experienced and nonjudgmental. Advice may be sought, though just putting words to fears and follies and being heard is healing in itself. But as with gratitude, don’t expect to be listened to in return. If you are, that’s a bonus, but most people are so relieved to have unburdened themselves, they don’t want to know any more.
Lists are an essential part of our lives: They give us purpose, structure and satisfaction. Therapists say making a daily list of what you want to achieve, and ticking items off, boosts self-esteem and confidence, though your ambitions have to be commensurate with your abilities—set the bar too high and you’ll end up feeling even more of a failure. Lists are also vital for those whose memory needs jogging. On the one hand, writing something down removes the need to carry it in your overstuffed head (provided, of course, you remember where you’ve put the list); on the other, memory is like a muscle that grows flabby if not exercised. I used to be an inveterate list maker, writing ideas down on scraps of paper, which I would attempt to file by subject, though most were so random, and so readily superseded by subsequent thoughts, that I stopped bothering. I now take the view that stuff will be remembered if it’s important enough (though at night I sometimes cheat by making a note in the air, which seems to make it last until the morning), and save my lists for work and shopping.
Loneliness is a condition that’s hard to understand if you’re not a sufferer. Solitariness—people who prefer and are perfectly happy with their own company—we can comprehend, but the lonely are a problem few of us want to tackle. We make sure friends who’ve been bereaved are looked after, calling round with meals they wouldn’t bother to cook for themselves, but after a while we stop phoning and leave them to their own devices. We can cope with their grief, but we soon want to shake off the chill of their isolation, in case it’s catching. Yet the truly lonely—those who try to manage on their own but because of illness or poverty are unable to leave their homes—are growing in number. Of course, if we all made regular visits to someone we knew had no one else, the world would be a kinder place. But how many of us have the time and dedication required? See also Solitude.
Losing is something you have to do with grace, but if you haven’t learned that by now you never will. Losing to a lover, or small children, may be a deliberate act of generosity, but if you can’t bear losing to a friend, then enjoy your tantrum, or learn to cheat better.
Love, if you’re lucky, deepens with age. It means you can still be surprised after years of familiarity by an aspect of beauty, by failings that have become endearing, by a sudden vulnerability you yearn to protect, by generosity, tolerance, and understanding beyond what you deserve, which you hope you return with interest. It also means sharing physical and emotional intimacy without shame or inhibition, and having someone to tell anything to, however trivial or absurd. The loss of such a love tears you in half. You can recover, and new love is always possible. Just don’t expect it to be the same.
Luck has to be recognized, then grabbed before it can get away. Experience makes this easier, though not always. Luck isn’t the same as chance, which is random. If someone calls you lucky, it’s a compliment, whereas describing you as a chancer means you’re not to be trusted, even if you are successful. When people envy your luck, they ignore the defeats you’ve suffered and the sadness you’ve endured, not realizing that luck is a bit like cooking: You can add a new ingredient to a familiar recipe and it’s either a triumph or a dish best forgotten.
Lust lurks around even the most aged of us, though desire rarely leads to performance. It can be explained as an instinct beyond our rational control, to be endured like any other ache you can do little about.
See also Arousal.
Lying is a sin we all commit because experience has taught us that honesty can be destructive. We don’t tell a loved one who’s unsure about a new hairstyle that it makes them look old and stupid, or a child who presents you with a drawing that a baboon armed with a crayon could have done better. Truth can be overrated, especially when most of us hear only what we want to hear. On the other hand, we owe it to our principles to expose lying when politicians start trading in “fake facts.” Most of us have survived this far by not sticking our heads too far above the parapet, but we have to become fighters for truth when lying becomes part of the political culture, because how else will those who come after us know the false from the true?