Drink coffee – do stupid things faster with more energy. This rusted and faded vintage metal sign hung on the wall of a local bar/café in rural Portugal. At that specific moment, the sign spoke to me. Not the part about drinking coffee, that’s why I was in the café. Plus I needed shelter. It was pouring rain and I was on my bicycle touring a new-to-me part of southern Portugal and Spain.
The sign spoke to me because it implied that cramming more stupid things into one’s life was a worthwhile goal.
Taken at face value, rather than accepting the sarcasm the sign was designed to exude—and defining stupid generously as the Urban Dictionary rather than Merriam-Webster might, to mean out of the ordinary or things others might not accept—who wouldn’t want to do as many stupid things in a lifetime as they could?
Hunter S. Thompson’s late 1960s quote agreed. “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a ride!’”
Is testing ourselves as we age a thing? How do we actually know what we might be capable of doing physically and mentally if we don’t push our limits now and then? Do we accept Thompson may have a point, or do we merely check our driver’s license, look at our birth date encoded there, and act as current norms suggest we should at that particular age?
Sadly, in my opinion, “skidding in broadside” is a philosophy that we as seniors are seldom being recommended, or are being coached to ignore. I would expect that as we age, we’d want to continually test ourselves to see what we were still capable of, and what we should admit we were past accomplishing. Most literature and self-help information on aging that I’ve found recently is focused on keeping it light and reasonable, enjoying rather than attacking life. The word risk never appears.
For me, this trip and bike ride represented a reset. It had been three years since I’d done a completely solo ride in a location new to me, and in which I could not speak the language. For the purpose of future planning, I wanted to understand if I would still enjoy being alone in a different culture, if Google maps and I could still navigate remote roads and trails, and if the stress and uncertainty were still weirdly enticing.
Upon returning to Pelham last week, I was interested to learn how other seniors were dealing with these questions. How far and when we should push ourselves, how do we measure our capabilities for independent adventure when we know they’re likely to be declining, and what will be the price to pay to continue doing “stupid” things?
The first two pages of a search for “aging gracefully or fighting old age” provided 17 results, 14 of which dealt with aging gracefully and three with ageism. None championed challenging oneself in an adventurous manner to fight old age.
The next search was for “How do you know your limits as you age?” The results were equally non-inspiring. The 18 results included “Aging – what to expect,” “Aging well,” and dishearteningly, “What to expect and how to adjust accordingly.” Excuse me, what if I’m not prepared to adjust just yet?
Only 69-year-old Julia Hubble, on a site called Sixty and Me, got it with her piece, “Want to push your boundaries in your mature years? First, know your limitations.” She went on to describe learning to in-line skate, unsuccessfully, for the first time at 62, spending a month on horseback trekking the Canadian wilderness at 67, and more. Her philosophy was, “We can stave off, but not prevent, the inevitable declines of age. What’s so very important is to do an honest self-assessment and understand your limitations.”
Perhaps I should have read her piece before my trip. I had planned to ride a gravel rail trail, maximum grade three percent, 60 kilometres from Jaen to Alcaudete in southern Spain, but the day was rainy and the trail was a soggy mess. I found a paved road through the mountains on my map, and decided to ride it instead to reach Alcaudete. Within 35 kilometres I had climbed 1229 metres, twenty-three times up Niagara Falls, and my poorly conditioned February cycling legs were toast. Good fortune, Google Translate, and a well-connected roadside café owner prevailed, and after a four hour wait, a taxi-van showed up and took me the remaining 30 kilometres through more mountains to Alcaudete. Overconfidence and hubris, and not understanding my limitations, nearly had me sleeping under a cactus in the middle of nowhere.
Libraries are full of books, and journals full of studies, that confirm for the majority of us our happiness increases after age 51. They advise us to stay physically active, stimulate ourselves mentally, and foster social connections. We need to eat and sleep well, set and achieve personal goals, and embrace new experiences. No argument there.
Still, it was a genuinely surprised to see the results of my next search, “How to push our boundaries as we age?” Two pages of results yielded 19 sites, and only one of them referred to seniors pushing limits. The other 18 somehow morphed into setting boundaries rather than pushing them—13 about setting boundaries between adult kids and their ageing parents, five about seniors setting their own social boundaries. All valid conversations I’m sure, but where was any information or support for Thompson’s used up and worn out golden agers wanting to proclaim “Wow! What a ride!”
With but a few exceptions, it seems we seniors are on our own to figure out how best to push accepted boundaries when searching for adventure.
Perhaps we do need to take time for a coffee and consider doing something stupid. Maybe learn how to be a kid again for a moment, an hour or a week. Those were the times we really learned and grew, weren’t they?