aging Archives — Goodman Speaks

May 20, 2023

Aging and Ego: Please, Martha, Enough

Martha Stewart at age 81 poses in scrupulous déshabillé for Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition, and her legions of fans applaud.

“Crafting, gardening, cooking, modeling, restaurant owner.…What can’t Martha do? Unstoppable,” one fan wrote on Instagram. “An icon,” another said.”

Yes, her ego is unstoppable and really tiresome. For years now she has set herself to rule over American middle-class lifestyle choices—in fashion, furnishing, gardening, cookware, accessories, recipes and gourmet food. She sells not just items but her taste as an arbiter of style for the good life.

After a slight interruption to serve a short jail term (for securities fraud and insider trading), Martha took on business ventures (see below) and a social media presence. Now she takes off her clothes to prove, I guess, that you’re as young as you feel. She took posing as a challenge, she says, which she met and found it “kind of fun . . . a testament to good living.” It seems, rather, to be a testament to making more money.

Sure, she looks good for an 81-year-old. I look pretty good too for my age yet would never display myself as some kind of physical paragon triumphing over the trials of aging. And how many older women would do that? On aging she says, “I think all of us should think about good living, successfully living, and not aging. The whole aging thing is so boring. You know what I mean?”

For me, entering the world of aging was like entering a new life. For her, it must be an unwelcome continuation of the old, fighting off the degeneration of body and mind. She wants to show how she can beat the devil.

The best story on Martha happened in her new Paris-in-Las Vegas restaurant, as reported here. She is involved in a licensing partnership with Caesars Entertainment “where Ms. Stewart helms the restaurant’s concept from design and décor to food and beverage recipes.” In this Martha-themed restaurant called Bedford, a roast chicken served lukewarm costs $89.95 and lukewarm baked potatoes cost $15.95 each.

“If you order a baked potato, one will be presented by a server, raised high in the air and brought down with a resounding thud on the surface of a tableside potato cart.” So the food is presented with phony showmanship at an exorbitant price. The writer wonders whether Martha serves potatoes this way at her house.

The Bedford seems like another attempt to sell good taste to the yahoos, and yet it turns out to be a venture in kitsch. Her media company at one point was worth over $1 billion but the Bedford cooks “work, not for her, but for Caesars Entertainment.” That arrangement puts a rather big dent in Martha’s reputation for competence.

And she’s never going to compete with the sexy young women who used to populate the Swimsuit Edition.

December 24, 2022December 24, 2022

Oldsters Partying in Puerto

The other night it was a mixed group, oldsters and mid-oldsters and a few younger people. I was probably the most senior of about thirty people there to exchange silly Christmas gifts and watch the sun go down over the Pacific. I knew only about four of these folks and thus looked forward to another evening of isolation, boredom, and social constipation.

This is what happens to many of us, old or not, as parties find us standing alone, drink in hand, listening to the noisy chitchat, resenting the loud music, deciding whether to approach a group and break into their conversation.

Perhaps you’ve experienced this. I used to be a jovial party-goer and party-thrower in my youth, big drinker, life of the party. (See “Nothing Succeeds like Excess.”) Aging often produces a slow process of withdrawal from all that, which is no bad thing. After all, how much small talk can you generate? Who wants to hear more stale political opinions, gossip about the neighbors, indulgent talk about oneself, with never a question about you?

At the party in question I came in with my partner, felt awkward and out of place, said a few hellos, and sat solo for a while to watch the sunset and plot my next (if any) moves. I made up my mind to tough it out so I went to sit with a younger couple eating dubious hors d’oeuvres and had a nice exchange with them.

The rum punch was good and I found people approachable. The gift exchange turned out to be fun, and the atmosphere changed from small pods of talkers to participants in an engaging group activity. I almost felt glad I’d come.

The small group I hang out with in Oaxaca was nothing like this mixed bag. Beach people are different. One older tanned guy in Hawaiian shorts looked like my old college roommate and never stopped talking. Other oldsters simply sat and said little. Women, as usual, carried the day and brought things to life. One looked like Kyrsten Sinema even to wearing a brassy Sinema-style dress. I kept ascribing personalities to these characters.

The point of all this is that aging produces in some of us the urge to withdraw (see “Retreat of the Elders”), which occasionally can come on strong. I’m not a recluse and I do like people, but in small groups or one-on-one. Most parties I can do without; this one—good for observations—wasn’t too bad.

Forced intimacy in any circumstance may work for the young. For most oldsters it just pushes old buttons.

November 12, 2022November 12, 2022

A Slight Loss of Control

Some fans have urged me to write more about aging. It is a rich topic, especially for one at my age (88). I offered my general thoughts on the matter a couple of weeks ago, but that was the tip of the iceberg, so to say.

Every aspect of aging seems to have three components—physical, psychological and social—and they’re all interlinked. There’s a very thorough and intimidating treatment of this on Wikipedia. Read it while you have your late afternoon cocktail. (Why do all discussions of aging always recommend easing off the booze? They totally ignore the psychological and social benefits.)

So today I want to talk not about dementia but about mental deficiency as it creeps up on you. This is normal yet disturbing. Myself and many friends have experienced loss of short-term memory. You know, forgetting your keys, the last name of a friend, where you put something. This is so common that it’s unremarkable. Yet it upsets a lot of us.

Often when you’re trying to recover a forgotten name it will come back to you a few moments later while you are thinking of something else. So your memory is still functional; it’s just taking its time to sift through all those long-unused cells in the mental library.

And sometimes the name or the word doesn’t come back. Well, calm down and search out related aspects of the word on Google. This will often trigger an association that can make the connection and turn your light bulb on. The usual fear and distrust of technology in elders is well-placed. But you have to learn to make tech work for you. I talked about some of the problems here in “Computer-Assisted Headaches.” We elders have to stop being intimidated by technology and learn simply to ignore what we can’t understand.

Keeping your mental alertness is key to solving many problems of aging. I have IBS, a too-common bowel disorder. So I complain again to my doc, who says that after all these years “you know more about this than I do.” I’m skeptical but as I experiment with treatments, nostrums, remedies natural and unnatural, I find some success in dealing with it. And I use the internet a lot.

Bottom line: your apparent loss of mental (even physical) control can often be compensated by using what’s left of your brain.

What we all worry about is keeping our mental acuity. Well, you’re never going to keep the edge you had at age 20 or 30. After 70, we all decline, so what can help? The usual advice is to exercise more, learn a new skill, play games and solve puzzles, dance, meditate, eat a good diet, and so on.

I think the most important way to keep sharp is to involve yourself regularly in a mentally challenging activity you love. For me it’s writing; for someone else it’s hiking or volunteer work or cooking. When you feel depressed, anxious, irritated with someone, or too isolated, don’t give way to it. Get back to something you really treasure doing.

That’s not just a bromide, folks. Example: when the blues take over, I turn to the music I love and I can regain an equilibrium from that. We need to remember to engage with the things we love.