Meaning of life

“It does not matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who are being questioned by life---daily and hourly.”

Wow. That is a profound statement and insight. By thinking of our life as a separate entity from ourselves, we suddenly find the tables turned. We are being questioned by life, not the other way around.

These are from a disturbing and insightful little book I just finished reading. “Man’s search for meaning,” by Viktor Frankl is a world wide best seller, having sold more than 12 million copies. Dr. Frankl was in a great position to ask questions about meaning of life, because he was a survivor of Nazi concentration camps.

One cannot imagine a fate worse than being herded in a concentration camp, with death lurking around every corner. Everything is taken away from you, including your name. You just become a number, to be eliminated if some sadistic pig decides that you are not worthy of preserving. Gas chamber is where you go because a bullet is too expensive to be wasted on you.

How does one survive under this condition? As per Dr. Frankl, who not only survived but also helped others do so, showing the person a future goal is an important first step. According to Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”

“Even if you think you have nothing more to expect from life, life is still expecting something from you. Something in the future, may be it is a child waiting for you or a book that you still need to write.”

Frequently, that is not sufficient. To be able to survive, one needs to change the way one looks at life.

“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks, which it constantly sets for each individual. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Life’s tasks form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will accept suffering as his task. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his unique burden.”

It is unlikely that anyone of us will ever end up in a situation as dire as what Dr. Frankl and his fellow inmates went through. However, thinking this way about life will help prepare us for the inevitable challenges we will face.

Mr. Buffo's presidency

It is hard to believe that two years have passed since the momentous events of 2016. So much has happened. Let me describe.

It all began with Mr. Buffo winning the Republican Party nomination. With the frenzy that he had whipped up, and the way he trounced his opponents, there was no alternate outcome. What was not anticipated is the sudden passing away of the Democratic front-runner. She was not young and the strain of campaigning finally got to her. Stunned by this unforeseen event, the Democratic Party out forth a candidate, who, in reality, had no chance against the juggernaut of Mr. Buffo.

So, Mr. Buffo won by a landslide. “I am the greatest,” he proclaimed in his usual humble manner. “We are going to make America great again,” he promised.

The inauguration was held at night, on request from Mr. Buffo. That way, he could have a commanding rally, similar to those held by the man he admired---that German leader who rose to power in the late 30s. Here is a picture of that rally. Mr. Buffo also had searchlights pointing upward during his inauguration, just the way the other guy did.

There were huge banners with large T emblazoned in the center. The attendees were given gold colored shits with a large T in front. No one who did not have the requisite shirt was allowed to participate. It was a grand sight.

He did not bother to have someone hold the Bible and a judge swearing him in. Like Napoleon, he crowned himself by mumbling his oath.

Then he spoke, and the crowd listened to their Messiah.

“We are going to make America great again. Just the way it was 100 years ago, when women and non-whites knew their places in the society. We will show the world that we are the greatest.  I promise you, we will clobber the crap out of whoever disagrees with what we want to do. That’s the way I ran my business and that’s the way I will run my country.” There was a thunderous applause, and a salute of Hail Buffo.

“The days of political correctness are over. If you want to call Mexicans Wetbacks, that is fine with me. Most are rapists and thugs anyway. Go ahead, you don’t need to call those black guys ‘African Americans,’ I prefer the other words much more.”

Thus began the presidency of Mr. Buffo.

As promised, he asked Mexico to give 50 billion dollars to build a wall at the border. “Jódete,” said the Mexican president. When President Buffo realized what it meant (Fu** you) he was beside himself. He wanted to invade Mexico right away and had to be persuaded not to do that. Reluctantly, he came up with another plan to raise funding.

“We will have to impose a ‘Make America Great Again’ tax on our people,” he said. His followers, keen to see America of 100 years ago come back again, reluctantly agreed. Thus funds were raised and the wall was built.

However, a curious thing happened. Harassed by white Americans, who thought it was fine to do that under President Buffo’s reign, most Mexicans decided to leave and go back to Mexico. However, the wall prevented them from doing that. President Buffo had forgotten to put any doors in the wall. Mexico managed to send ships to evacuate those desperate to leave America, Dunkirk style.

Of course, the whole agriculture sector in the South collapsed. There were no laborers available to replace the Mexicans. The gardens of rich backers of Mr. Buffo wilted and the lawns turned brown. There were no nannies available to take care of kids. “You are not making America great, as you promised,” hollered some of the backers.

Meanwhile, Buffo was busy fulfilling his other promise. He demanded that all Muslims wear a crescent moon symbol on their garments, so people could identify potential terrorists. The borders were sealed for Muslims. Insulted by this assault on their religion, the countries in the Middle East started an embargo of their oil. The price of gasoline soared and once again there were lines at the pump. Furious, Mr. Buffo sent all Muslims to Internment Camps. “Hey Roosevelt did that with the Japanese, why can’t I?”

In order to facilitate transfer to the Internment Camps, President Buffo had to come out with a new group of enforcers. Called Make America Great GREAT Official Troops---MAGGOTS for short, had full authority to what they wanted, over and above the other agencies and departments.

Emboldened by his success at spawning MAGGOTS, President Buffo picked his next target. He called the Chinese leader and told him to shape up or US will halt all its trade with his country. “Nī tā mā de,” said the Chinese leader. “Fu** you.” All exports to China stopped and so did all import. Soon the shelves in American malls were emptied. There was practically nothing that the consumers could buy. President Buffo, who had managed to keep control of his business in spite of being President, started a manufacturing plant to make some of the things, but when he mentioned what he would be willing to pay, no American worker was interested. “You are fired,” he said, fondly remembering the simpler times.

“I will pay more attention to the Chinese,” he declared, and he found a way to do that. Noticing that a large majority of graduate students in some of the best colleges in US were Chinese and Indians, he decreed that the admissions to those ‘others’ be suspended so that more of ‘us’ can be admitted. “Until we find out what the hell is going on.”

Colleges were asked to open their doors to anyone who wanted to attend, without any consideration to grades or recommendations. It took about a year, but by the end of it, most colleges were in dire trouble and foreign students went to Europe, which welcomed them with open arms.

Eventually, what was inevitable happened. The country’s finances unraveled, riots broke out, and his folks were ready to lynch him. “I would like the country to declare bankruptcy,” he demanded. “That is the way I have always managed to get out of such messy situations.”

When reminded that he could not declare the country bankrupt, he said he did not want to play this game. “You are all idiots, and do not appreciate what a great leader I have been.” With that he resigned.

Thus began the reign of Rush Limbaugh, the Vice President who was waiting for such a chance.

The stage of just living

Retirement is quite different from the other stages in life.

While in school, we had to progress from one standard to another, and there were grades by which we could judge how well we are doing. When that stage ended and we went to work, we strived to create a career, progressing from one job to another, with increasing responsibility and remuneration. We measured (if we were so inclined) how well we were doing based on performance measures such as our bank balance and title that our business cards boasted.

Nothing like that happens after we retire. There is no easy way to judge if we are having a successful retirement or not. There are no performance measures nor are there goals that need to be reached. Our day is not divided into billable hours and no accounting is required on how we spend our time. We have full authority to do nothing. Having done that, we do not need to not feel that we have wasted the day. We can decide to just “live”.

However, doing so is not easy.

We end up creating some pseudo performance measures because most of us cannot live without the feeling that we are making progress even in retirement. We create a “bucket list” and tick off what has been done. “I am making progress in my retirement because I now have done fifteen things out of thirty in my bucket list,” we say.

My feeling is that we need to figure out a way to be satisfied with the process, or journey, of retirement not the goals we achieve. One could argue that the same can be applied to the other stages of life. One should focus on learning not on grades, and, later, in doing meaningful work, not the wealth it creates. True, but those choices have major implications on what type of life you live. That is not the case once you have retired.

Are performance measurements necessary for a fulfilling life? Can we be happy just living?

Taking Stock

It is hard for me to believe, but three years have passed since I entered a new chapter of my life---“retirement” or more accurately, the Encore Phase. In my Blog post of January 2013, I had outlined what I thought I would do in this phase. Three years into it, I thought it would be a good time to take a stock of what I was thinking of doing and how things have actually turned out.

I had based my plan according to my thinking of leading a well balanced life that consisted of spending time in each of four quadrants, two related to intellectual activities and two, physical. I had, somewhat crudely titled them as left-brain activities, right-brain activities, low-energy activities and high-energy activities. (See my Blog Post of November 2012 for a detailed description of these quadrants.)

I realized that there are two additional segments that need to be included in order to lead a fulfilling life. I call them Family support activities and Giving back activities. These somewhat inelegant descriptors contain what you need to do to nourish the emotional aspect of being a human. I am avoiding using the term “spiritual” because I m not sure what that means if you are not a religious person and do not believe in god.

So the version 2 of the Well-Balanced Life diagram looks like this:Now, these segments are not mutually exclusive. For example, Travel would be a high-energy activity that includes gastronomy. An intellectual activity, such as pro-bono consulting, constitutes Giving back to the society.

So, where am I at in these segments?

Starting from bottom, the low-energy activities, I have not made much progress on the gastronomy side. I still have no interest in cooking and very little in fine cuisine. I am learning about different bourbons, partly thanks to my younger family members, but one needs to be careful in controlling this activity--- I see many retirees become too fond of drinking. My TV watching has not gone up substantially nor do I go to see movies more than I used to. I have not taken up watching sports. So, overall, retirement has not made that much of a difference in this segment of activities.

Moving on to the high-energy activities, we both try to remain fit. I perhaps go to the health club more than I used to. Besides the health benefits, the club provides a place to go to in order to prevent cabin fever, especially during the winter months. We continue to bike and ski, but have been slowing down on the hiking front. We have not done our three day hut-to-hut hike in the past three years, partly because of restrictions placed on what we can do while taking care of my aging father. Also, we have not gone on any trek in the past three years. But, we have travelled quite a bit, especially Central/South America and Europe, and gone on a couple of biking vacations. In addition, my list of extreme travels is now done, having been to the “Northernmost point I can (without spending a fortune)”---Svalbard in Norway at 80 degree Latitude.

I have generally done well on the left-brain activity segment. I am involved with providing pro-bono management consulting to non-profits in the Boston area through an organization called Executive Service Corps (ESC). I have completed two assignments, both for conservancies preserving green space in and around Boston. Now, I am helping an organization devoted to providing housing and services to folks with developmental disabilities---a very satisfying activity. I also devote time going through courses offered by “The Great Courses” company. These are in a wide variety of subjects in physics, biology, history, anthropology, and so on. Finally, through a program offered by the Northeastern University, I am volunteering in a middle school in a low-income community, helping science teachers teach biology through experiments.  This is forcing me to learn biology, not an area of my professional career. Finally, I have continued to write my Blog. This forces me to think about various subjects in a rational way.

I have spent a lot of time focusing on the right-brain activities, primarily photography. I have learned a lot and improved quite a bit from three years ago. Encouraged by comments from fellow photographers (both in Camera Clubs and on Flickr) as well as friends/family members, I keep on experimenting with different techniques and subjects. I have won a Grand Prize (first out of 800 entries) in a photography competition, and been on Flickr Explore gallery numerous times. In this gallery, Flickr exhibits 500 pictures out of 8.6 million submitted daily. My progress in photography is way beyond I was planning to do or hoping to achieve.

I was also planning to learn how to play piano, and I have yet to do that. However, I have spent a lot of time on learning the fine points of Western Classical Music, primarily through the Great Courses, and have felt confident enough to write a document describing this type of music to an Indian audience. I have made some progress on appreciating other types of Western music, and have great support from my son in law who is a music journalist, but I can’t say I have gotten too far.

Moving on, the additional two segments, I (we) have derived a great deal of satisfaction from taking care of my aging father. This emotionally satisfying activity extracts a price---there are restrictions placed on other activities. On the other hand, we are doing our duty.

Finally, I am giving back to the society to the best of my ability. Not having an enormous fortune to spend on philanthropy, my contribution comes in form of mentoring and volunteering. If my pro-bono consulting can improve efficiency and effectiveness of a non-profit, there will be many beneficiaries.   If my assistance in teaching science can excite even one student toward this subject, and make him/her a doctor, scientist or an engineer, I would have given back.

So, in summary, I am generally pleased the way things have turned out. I have not had one day when I did not know what I should do. As my wife continues to work almost full-time, a great deal of time I am alone or with my father whose ability to communicate has gone down substantially. Having thought through and planned on what to do during those times have helped me not feel lonely or worse---depressed.