2/26/08
I thought it quite appropriate to make my little corner of MoreLife.org available to Paul to record whatever he thought worth writing on this, his 70th birthday. So for this entry, the words are those of Paul Wakfer - my love, my husband, my partner in all, and now my Super Septuagenarian ;>) ... **Kitty
This entry is to record the state of my physical and mental well-being at this juncture in my life, particularly as it is an age at which the vast majority of people are clearly degrading in both physical and mental performance, often concurrent with one or more major dysfunctions.
Physical
This section will be brief since all my current activities and health parameters are recorded and frequently updated online at http://morelife.org/personal/health/. In a nut shell, apart from moderate presbyopia (which is relatively painlessly corrected with eyeglasses, although for fine work I need to use a magnifying glass that I always keep available) and cosmetic signs of age, I have no major physical deteriorations from earlier in my life - certainly no dysfunctions that prevent me from doing anything that I want to do. Among other activities, I can and do still enjoy (not in any order of preference): high energy dancing with 20-30 year olds and partner dancing with Kitty - better and better as time progresses; listening to music of a very wide variety of genres, with no apparent hearing loss; working efficiently at the computer, and reading on and off of it; having great erections and orgasms with Kitty; skillfully and safely driving our Subaru WRX; going for long exploring hikes and foraging for wild foods; skillfully using many tools for property maintenance and development projects of all kinds; eating the many delicious foods that we prepare for our once daily meal; having highly restful sleeps. In fact, the only major negative physical factor in my life right now is the recurring strange infectious malady related to my left leg which I have described briefly in a February 2007 MoreLife Yahoo message (my comment at the very end) and Kitty described more fully in a Kitty Reflects entry back in November 2002 and I hope to have eliminated before I reach 75.
Mental and Emotional
With respect to the mental and emotional aspects of my life, there is no doubt in my mind that I am at an all time high point, and I am convinced that this aspect of my life will continue to improve for decades yet. With Kitty I have found the best buddy, bosom pal, lover and partner in everything that I hold to be important in life. Since childhood, although I had never been part of a mutual best buddy relationship, I had always thought such a relationship was possible. And even though later I came to realize that it might never happen for me, I remained open to its possibility (which is, of course, why it was still possible to happen when my, mostly subconsciously applied, people-filtering techniques of being sincerely open and forthright about myself, attracted Kitty to me). Because of Kitty, what she has inspired me to do and what I have accomplished, I can truly say that I am happier, more satisfied and more complete than at any other time in my life. And this is true in spite of the deterioration of society that I see all around me, the fundamental nature of which I grow more aware as I gain more insight over time, and my frequent frustrations concerning my inability to sufficiently influence positive change of these highly negative social practices.
Specific ways in which my mental abilities and psychological health are either as good or far better than ever before are:
To finish this section on emotions, I will relate a little incident that occurred Monday (2/25/2008) which illustrates how little my concern, earnest desire and appreciation for logic, rationality and optimal happiness for everyone in the world, has changed since the time of my first memories.
I and Kitty went to the post office yesterday to send off two parcels, one of which was a priority flat rate box that we wanted to insure for a large amount. Kitty had checked the USPS website and already calculated what the total of postage plus insurance would be. Sure enough this was the first amount that appeared on the screen as the clerk was figuring out what to charge us. However, he did not immediately tell us that amount and ask us to pay the total, but instead continued working and new figures began to appear on the screen replacing the old ones, namely registration plus insurance. When we asked what was happening, he said that he thought that it might be cheaper this way and since it was also more secure, this would be a better way to send it as long as we were not too concerned about the small extra amount of time due to the registration tracking and accounting procedures. Even though it at first appeared illogical that registration plus insurance should be cheaper than only insurance, I quickly saw that the logic of the situation was based on the fact that the risk of any loss was far lower if the package was sent registered than if not and thus the insurance rate was far lower. I talked this over with the clerk and stated that it was so nice to see the reasonableness of this pricing difference because so often pricing on things was quite irrational (as, for example, when Food City has their l lb bags of carrots at 2 for $1 while their 2 lb bags of carrots remain at $1.09 - as is the odd situation found there almost all the time). The clerk smiled back in agreement with me about both my reasoning for the USPS logic on this pricing and the fact of other pricings often being irrational. As we were talking I could not help but notice a small welling of tears (of joy) in my eyes and after paying the total as we walked away, I related to Kitty my emotional state (as clearly shown by that tear response). It is a response that I have always had when events (particularly difficult ones) are consummated with a rationally happy conclusion. These are tears of joy and relief that things have worked out well, which have often occurred in heroic movies with good endings - like there used to be a lot of 50+ years ago, but are much fewer today. In the case of the post office, I think that it was in response to the fact that even here in a government monopoly one could find some logical pricing, a clerk who understood it and moreover cared enough to see that we got the best exchange to mutual advantage that was possible within his system. My emotion was tears of joy, that maybe, just maybe, there is still hope for current society.
So to conclude, as I turn 70 and reflect on the state of my life, I must conclude that, given the social circumstances in which I live, my life could not really be much better than it is. And furthermore, the best fact of all is that, again barring any major deterioration of society, I do not see any good reason why this joyous and productive state should not continue for many more decades.
--Paul
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