Projections

Being the self-absorbed creatures too many of us are, another person's important event becomes yet another opportunity to think about ourselves. Weddings, funerals, Little League games, and a million other things that remind us of what was, what might have been, and what may be.

One of the self-reflective observed occasions that changes slowly over half a lifetime is the retirement "party." What an incredibly dull and meaningless subject for you, I suspect. Everyone keeps telling you that when you start your career you should, after nest-egging your "rainy-day" money, immediately start saving for your retirement. Who does that in their twenties? So when you go to your first retirement "party," it will seem an alien occasion for you. You will be an observer of old folks you barely know, and probably be a bit cavalier and scarely make any connection to what is a monumental change for that not-as-old-as-you-think old-timer. Why should you kick in twenty bucks and waste an hour or two? As you go to more retirement occasions, you may think of the retirement's impact on the organization and perhaps on your place in the company, and maybe begin to wonder what will happen to the acquaintance who is retiring. Eventually, these occasions do not seem so abstract as you come to know those that retire a little better, and the dim light of the future has brightened to the point that you begin to contemplate what retirement means for you. Soon thereafter you talk in detail with those about to retire, examining their perspectives and plans. They tell you that they have mixed feelings about retirement, but "it's time." Retirement parties at some point probably become like dress rehearsals, and you wonder when it will be time. And then it is.

I'm not going to tell you to start planning for retirement because you won't, nor will shrill, impassioned carpe diem appeals have any impact on you immortal undergraduates. Rather, perhaps you might contemplate the phases of life, and how the only life you've known, the student phase, will soon end, and another begin. And, if the hand you are dealt is a good one, there will be many phases to come.

By the way, when you come to see life as phases, you may be impressed by the linear inevitabilty towards finality. School, job, wife, house, kids, better job and house, empty house, retirement, death. There will be some bumps along the way, but can you break out of the lemming's march? Don't do one of the steps in the sequence and live forever. Which one should you forgo to cheat the Reaper?

Remember when?

I have mentioned previously that the great fear of Boomers is Alzheimers, and as we age and have what I hope are normal lapses and slowness of memory, we wonder if these are "early signs." But in general, it is interesting what people find memorable. I often find myself having little or no recollection of events and details that others whom I was with remember vividly, even if the events concerned me, yet often remember the most inconsequential data. I am a little familiar with the neurobiology and cognitive psychology describing memory processes, but it is the ideosyncratic nature of what is meaningful that often facilitates processing and retention that is fascinating. Though for many it is sometimes (sadly) as simple as "how does this affect me," sometimes it is not. For example, my wife yesterday showed me a picture, probably taken about five years ago, in which I was wearing a cow suit along with a top hat (as apparently the cow suit alone was not distinctive enough). Now that seems like something I would remember (especially since I don't drink), and indeed I have some general recollection of the occasion, but why couldn't I remember what was likely a unique and festive if not embarrassing occasion for me? Even in concentrating, I can only conjure the vaguest hint of a memory. In fact, I can only deduce when it probably occurred using a memory mnemonic that is central for me in answering when questions. I suspect this method is commonplace, especially as one ages: organizing and deducing times relative to known temporal landmarks, or what I call "timeposts."

In trying to remember when something happened, I will generally try to place it in the context of a particular phase or event in my life. For example, if I want to remember when the first Star Wars movie was released, I'll think who was I dating at the time, where I was living, or other known details of my life or noteworthy events that will serve as time parameters. I am constantly deducing "whens" relative to timeposts, and I know some others do too (as with parents calculating their children's ages), but I don't know how common or conscious these activities are.

There are a relatively small number of timeposts that organize the temporal elements of my memories, and perhaps contribute to my perception of life being lived in phases. For kids, there are a lot of timeposts, such as school grades/teachers, birthdays/parties, and many other time posts that I think contribute to the sense of time passing more slowly when younger. I know that recent evidence suggests that there is a neurobiological dimension that contributes to the perception of time speeding up as one ages (and how often do you hear we old folks complain about how fast life goes by), but I wonder if a declining rate of "timeposts" also is a factor. Fewer timeposts may also contribute to the phenomenon of finding it easier to place memories in the more distant past than more recent past.

If your are in college, it is likely that the date of your graduation will be an important timepost for you. And you'll be using it in no time.

Turn out the lights, the party's over

Now that the spring semester is upon us, some of you now begin thundering down the homestretch. But as the sheepskin comes into view, what are those other things? Excitement and anxiety. The four to six years is finally nearly over, and the sense of impending success is wonderful, as it should be. But there is that nagging doubt and melancholy. Are (were) these really the best years of your life? You will miss the womb called college. And this is the big one: what next?

You're going to have to get a real job, which is OK I guess since you're supposed to and it will be great to get paid to work and enough with the ramen, pasta, peanut butter, 7-bone steak, and generic everything. But what are you going to do? The world wants you to pick one thing, and you have many things in which you are interested. Of course, the things you're most interested in really don't pay. Not many jobs pay you to drink beer until you vomit, stay up until 4 a.m. saving the virtual galaxy, or to "shop till you drop." Too bad, that's what you're really good at (and actually, there do seem to be a few openings for that last one, particularly on Long Island).

Ah, maybe you can delay the inevitable. Grad school? The military? Your parents' basement? What is most amazing to me is that so many near-graduates do so little preparation for post-graduation. Is it time to do so? Here are the signs:

- Many of those friends and acquaintances that you used to see on campus are no longer there.
-There are a lot more people on campus that look very, very young.
-Someone, perhaps one of those impossibly young freshman, has called you sir or ma'am.

-You know where everything is, and people at those places know who you are- even the professors.

It now occurs to you that graduation is drawing near, and in fact the Records Office and various entities on campus corroborate that suspicion by sending you all sorts of time-to-go information. Soon people start asking you what you are going to do after graduation. With the spring bloom comes a rapid succession of "this is the last time I'll ever thoughts." Now everyone asks you what you will do after graduation, with many (especially those with your surname) inquiring as to whether you have a job lined up. Please note that after graduation, there will be only one (or at least the first) topic of conversation with everyone one you see: do you have a job? The "I've finally graduated" euphoria will rapidly dissipate and be replaced with severe agoraphobic behavior as you begin to loathe social contact and the inevitable job conversation. At this point, the pressure is enormous to find a job- any job. Maybe you will succumb to that "I'll just take this job that I don't particularly want so that I can pay some bills, get people off my back, and keep looking for the job I really want." Of course, you will end up having that tie-me-over job for far longer than you intend, and it will likely pigeon-hole you if you wish to change your career (what's your experience?), but at least you might get a nice gold watch out of it around 2050.

So what's the moral of the story? Start preparing for life-after-college NOW. You have the misfortune of graduating in a brutal economy, but have the good fortune of time and information. You've got some months before the unbearable stress that will be next September without a job. Time to take a trip over to career placement, time to fire up the computer (you'll be amazed at the information on-line), time to start talking to people, and time to grab an internship if at all possible. Time is on your side right now, but time is linear and waits for no one.

And don't worry so much; all of us, at all ages, want to know what we're going to be when we grow up.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Missed a posting last week as I was on the left coast where there was even more evidence of how miserable this recession is. Governor Terminator is threatening to issue IOUs to creditors and even to those due tax refunds. Housing has crashed, and the "single-family home" is becoming an endangered species. But besides the obvious unemployment, Chapter Elevens, foreclosures, stock crashes, and the rest, it is amazing how everyone is trying to bleed us for every penny. The airlines, after gouging ticket prices (over $600 each- did anybody notice that fuel prices are less than 30% of their peak?), charge $17 per piece of luggage (each way) and then have the audacity to charge two dollars for a bottle of water on a cross-country red-eye. Legoland (the worst value ever for anyone over four years old, by the way), after charging $10 for parking (or was it 12?) and $62 a head for a third-class Disneyland, then charges multiples of fair value for food, $5 for carnival games that can't be won (not even a chintzy "thanks for playing" prize for the little kids), super-premium gift-shop prices, etc. Even the gas stations charge extra for credit cards. It used to be that paying cash might get you a discount, but when I put my credit card in a pump in la-la-land, a "Do you approve the 45 cent processing fee?" message popped up. The crazy price increases in a recession are irritating enough, but the constant nickel and diming (or five and ten dollaring) is ridiculous. At least energy prices are down as OPEC realized that lowering prices was the only way to defuse the clamor for alternative energy. The rescue packages are helping some, despite their aweful administration (would have been nice to have that wasted Iraq war money, huh?), but where will this printing money policy lead us? And by the way, wait till we see what's under the consumer credit rock...