Think of this as Volume 11, Number 29 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.
The picture at the top of this blog is something of a lie.
This is what I look like today.
The difference? I call it The Whitening.
It's something that comes to all of us sooner or later. It hits us when we are at our strongest, our most alive, our most joyful. I am going from being a red-bearded bald guy to a white-bearded one.
The Whitening is God's reminder that our time on Earth has a limit, that we have obligations to the future, and that we had better get on the stick.
We don't often talk about The Whitening. We watch it in others, we see it in the mirror. But we don't talk about it. Anyone notice Keith Olbermann since the 2004 conventions? The Whitening is happening. Anyone talking about it? No.
The Whitening is going to happen to Barack Obama, too. By the 2012 election he will look more like Nelson Mandela than the thin basketball player he portrays today. The Whitening.
There are three general approaches you can take to The Whitening:
- Acceptance -- This is my saintly wife's way. Every week she sees a few more white strands among the copper-tinged auburn locks she has worn to her waist since we first met 30 years ago. She shrugs and goes on. One of her fonder childhood memories is of her grandmother, from whom she got her name, as an old woman, taking down her white bun at night and stroking her long white hairs with a brush. I've always seen that scene as one of her ambitions, and it's one I very much hope to see fulfilled.
- Resistance -- This is my way. In the last few years I've become a workout fiend. Most days I do 35 minutes on an elliptical machine. Some days I lift weights. Recently I added stomach crunches. On warm Sundays I ride my bike, usually 10-15 miles, sometimes as many as 30-35. I feel stronger, and more alive than I did at 35. But I also face a daily need for a brief nap, and when I wake up in the middle of the night (which happens more-and-more often) there's a stiffness that leaves me waddling. You can fight The Whitening but don't hope to beat it.
- Rejection -- Paul Simon sings of "painting my hair the color of mud" in Outrageous, a track from his vastly-underrated Surprise album. "Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?" he asks, speaking for many of us over-50s. (Fortunately he has an answer -- "God will.") Rejection is the assumed baby boomer stance to The Whitening.
Which reminds me, this is not just a personal story. I was born at
the very height of the Baby Boom, in 1955. I'm now 53 years old. The
youngest baby boomers, among them my brother, are now in their mid-40s.
None of those yuppies you see in modern downtowns has any living memory
of John F. Kennedy, even of the Moon Landing.
This is the real, largely ignored story of the 2008 election, one I've been warning you about here for a few years now. This election is not about us.
Just as Baby Boomers' heroes were those who were actually slightly older (like Simon, born in 1944, or Paul McCartney, born in 1942) so it is that those born in the 70s and 80s now look up to elders like Barack Obama. While technically born during the Baby Boom, his experience in fact has nothing to do with that period. It was his grandparents' war. His mother was born the same year as McCartney. That's his constituency, those for whom World War II was their grandparents' war.
The Whitening reminds me of that. It reminds all of us of that.
So what can you do about it?
In my case, I'm redoubling my efforts to provide a positive example
for my kids, to guarantee them the chance to make whatever they can of
themselves through college. I'm supporting them, not just financially
but emotionally, and it's the most satisfying work of my life.
I'm also redoubling my efforts here. I have accepted that I'm not a book writer, that if books are to be published under my name they will come from the blogosphere. The War Against Oil, the novellas, my history -- there is a lot there to be discovered. But my job is creating it, not marketing. And with the limited time available to me -- however much there may be -- that's what I'm going to do.
There is a liberation to The Whitening which, if you take advantage of it, can make it your life's greatest pleasure. Remember that the glass is always at least half-full, and that might be an illusion. You've made it this far. It's filled with something. Drink deep.
Enjoy.
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