Texas Meditations

Bandera, Texas

Whenever my friend Kevin comes down from Indiana, we like to head to Big Bend or Hill Country for a few days. On this trip, we chose the latter. He was riding his bike from Fredericksburg to Bandera. I gave up cycling ten years ago and even in my best days, the trip from Seabrook to Kemah, twice over the bridge, was my top accomplishment. Needless to say, these days he makes that 50 mile Hill Country trip himself, thank God!

We were to meet up in the late afternoon at the 11th Street Cowboy Bar. Since my Jeep runs slightly faster than his bicycle, I arrived before him. As I walked in, I saw the poster on the wall behind the bartender and I responded appropriately . . . or so I thought.

“Jak Sie Mas!” The bartender looked at me like I had just landed from Mars. I pointed to the poster; it said “Keep Bandera Polish.” Apparently, she knew the posters were all over town but really didn’t relate to them herself.

“It means something like “How are you doing?” I explained.

“Ah, I’ve seen that on those yellow bumper stickers but never knew what it meant. What can I get you?”

“Two Coronas. I’m meeting my buddy here in a few minutes.”

His timing was perfect. Just as she was turning around to get the beers, he pulled up, locked his bike to the hitching post out front and walked in.

In the afternoon on weekdays, you can usually land one of the four stools at the tiny bar up front and that’s what we did. While the cavernous back courtyard is great for concerts and dancing, I prefer the small, intimate surroundings of the front bar.

From there, you see everyone who comes in, the cute bartender, and the horses hitched up outside.

Now Kevin is the kind of guy who likes to think things through thoroughly before he makes any statements. That is why his comments are always so inciteful. It is also why you sometimes need to wait a few minutes, or years, for his response. Apparently, he had been thinking about today’s topic for a long, long time and came to the conclusion that I was engaging in stinkin’ thinkin’.

“I think your bell curve model happens only if we let ourselves go to sleep on the ‘acquire’ part.”

Since his comment came out of nowhere, I had to take a minute to figure out the context of this discussion. What were we talking about? It was a subject that hadn’t come up for years but I eventually put it together. Long term readers of this column may remember back in 2015 I wrote about how the trajectory of our lives resembles a bell curve. We come into the world with nothing.

Then, for decades, we are in an acquisition phase; we acquire interests, stuff, even friends. For most people, that phase continues till the kids leave home and we experience the empty nest. From there, the downsizing begins. Smaller houses, less “stuff,” and eventually, reduced activities due to the inevitable “rusting” that happens to old bodies. This downward trend continues, sometimes including moves to even smaller homes— eventually, in some cases, to nursing homes.

As we downsize our space, we also reduce our possessions. In the end, we go out with exactly what we brought into life—nothing.

Of course, I was intrigued. I waited for him to explain.

“The first time I decided to climb a mountain on a

Texas Meditations The Bell Curve Revisited

Michael W. Gos

bicycle, it was more than a little intimidating,” he said. “But it led to some serious awesomeness. Joining a masters’ swim team as a non-swimmer was probably one of the most intimidating, and maybe silliest, things I've ever done, but I've been richly rewarded for that move. There are plenty of examples, but they all seem to originate when I took a chance and ventured outside my comfort zone—when I acquired new interests.”

I need to tell you a bit about this man. You’re right; he is abnormal. But you need to know more. Twenty years ago he was one of the least athletic people I had ever met—and I’m not exaggerating. Not only could he not spin a basketball on his finger, I don’t think he could even hit a free throw (when you live in Indiana, that is a sacrilege). Now, in his sixties, he runs Ironman Triathlons for fun. He certainly doesn’t act like he is on the downward slope.

“As we age,” he continued, “it is natural to stick with things that are familiar and comfortable to us because we are satisfied with life as it is—but that is the whole problem. All the awesome things, the new interests in our lives, have a half-life. It is inevitable that they eventually fade. If we begin to neglect the ‘acquire’ phase and accept only the downward slope, what we have left will eventually diminish and we'll arrive at the end of the bell curve that you described.”

I sat for a minute, had a few sips, and slowly came to an understanding of what he was saying. He was right, of course. It is sometimes frustrating to discover that we—in this case, I—have totally missed so obvious a truth. But in every case when this happens, I think our lives are better for it. It is this constant re-evaluation that makes life truly exciting. As Socrates says, ”The unexamined life is not worth living.” All learning is fun, but learning things that greatly improve your life is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

Still, as is often the case in our conversations, I was speechless. We are both comfortable with lengthy periods of quiet—I think most men are. So it was okay that it was several minutes before I responded. Even then, all I could think of was something he told me decades ago. I took the last sip from the bottle and repeated that lesson word for word.“Hey, as a wise man once told me, when nothing else makes sense in the world, there is always beer!” We both ordered another.

Friends of forty plus years who live a thousand miles apart, like Kevin and I, are indeed rare. Most friendships are temporary. Like friendships, old interests often fade; both are inevitable. But with every one that ends, we are gifted new time and energy to explore other experiences. If we want to continue to live a good life, no matter our age, we will have to continue to venture outside of our comfort zone—to try, and if it proves interesting, invest our energies in a new activity, idea or friendship. We must never stop the acquisition phase. Every new thing we engage in, be it activity or friend, postpones the downward slope.

While I appreciate the wisdom of Socrates’ thoughts on the unexamined life, I need to add something that he apparently didn’t consider. While it is true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it is also true that no matter how old you are, the unlived life is not worth examining.