I had dinner last night with some friends and acquaintances. One of them is a Ph.D. Psychologist who has spent his entire career doing large research studies of different diets and their effect on obesity and diabetes. We got talking about the Dynamic Aging Program I will begin teaching/facilitating at Furman University starting September 17, and I asked him if he would like to talk for 45-90 minutes with my students about his findings. This is where the discussion got interesting.

The Scientific Law of Averages
I don’t want to put this person down at all – because he has done some extremely valuable work over the years. His working with large masses of people representing a cross-section of the census population has produced knowledge about “average” lifestyles, habits, and the results of certain diets on health and well-being that have helped many people. This information is useful because it addresses what is happening or will happen with the general masses of the population. However, this is not the only form of valuable research. In fact, this type of research can actually distort – and dampen – our expectations of what a human being is capable of achieving in their lifetime.

Modern science, taken to its extreme, treats people that are different (both positively and negatively) as aberrations from the norm. These people who are a couple of standard deviations or more from average are largely ignored in these studies, because the purpose of the research is to determine generalized knowledge which may or may not be true for any particular individual.

For instance, in my Dynamic Aging Program I am much more concerned about what an aging adult’s “potential” is – rather than how most older adults are actually behaving or what the averages show us. To do this, I am intentionally starting out with a group of exceptional and motivated older adults, rather than a cross-section of the older population. The research I plan to conduct over the next few years on dynamic aging should provide new information on how a person taking a more knowledgeable and proactive approach might optimize their own aging process – living a longer life of higher quality – while hopefully also observing a process of growth, development, and self-actualization that many older adults are capable of achieving in the last third of life – provided they are motivated to pursue this path.

My Psychologist friend said he was uncomfortable talking to any group of adults about their so-called potential, because he believed his research showed that people mostly acted from their conditioning, genetic blueprint, and/or social beliefs. In essence, he didn’t believe that older adults have the ability to achieve anything out of the ordinary in the last third of life. Instead – in his belief system – they will always fall back into the parameters of so-called “normal” behavior.

Crabs in a Pot
When I ponder the effect this type of scientific thinking has on an older population, the story about “Crabs in a Pot” comes to mind. Shellfish tend to taste better if they are boiled while still alive, but if you throw only one crab into a boiling pot of water, it will quickly use its claws to scramble up the side of pot and out onto the floor. The trick is to place several live crabs into the pot at the same time. In so doing, any single crab trying to scramble out of the pot will be pulled back in by the other crabs, and they all get cooked together.

The scientific determination that people are truly represented by a bunch of norms and averages creates a belief in our society that we have no options – that we have no potential that is any different from anyone else, and that we will all get pulled down by our friends and neighbors to the same set of common denominators. Science has actually created its own “social construction” of reality through this belief system, which acts as a barrier for anyone who is trying to live an extraordinary life. However, instead of boiling to death like our crab friends, most people adopt the belief that they have little or no control over their own aging process, and then cook in the slow process of age-related decline that is inevitable if one does not take proactive measures to constantly be changing and developing their potential.

In my belief, being like everyone else and having little or no hope for positive change would be a form of living death. Where else – other than my own growth process – could I find the same experience of adventure, excitement, the unknown, and the joy of constantly becoming a better person? How could I fulfill my need to achieve some unknown potential? What would I do with my time – play golf, bridge, take vacations, surf the internet? Shoot me now please.

I am not saying that my beliefs are even close to being widespread in our society today, but it could easily become that way if more people opened their eyes, saw through the lies created by the scientific paradigm and the social construction of reality, and quit trying to pull everyone else back into the pot with them. If you want to play golf every day until you can’t any more, or play bridge until you are so bored you can’t stand it and your butt hurts from sitting all day – then that is great. However, please don’t try to tell me that my ideas and aspirations are wrong. It just seems a little too convenient that a person can dismiss the possibility of something simply because it is not part of their past experience or belief system – especially when that something has such a tremendous possibility for improving their quality of life.

Instead, this dismissal of the possibility that we each have something great to achieve in the last third of life seems a little too much like “denial” – and the use of this and other defense mechanisms to take what we might think is the easy way out. But is that what you want – to take the easy way out of this life? Is this the meaning and purpose we have created for ourselves? Is this why we were born to this earth? Is this really going to make us happy? I don’t think so, but I guess I could be wrong.

It is nice to be blogging again after spending the entire summer promoting the DAP in the greater Greenville community. I am happy to say this effort appears to have paid off, because every available position in the program was quickly filled and I have even allowed more students to register than originally intended. There are currently close to 40 students enrolled. I am looking forward to the challenge of helping this brave group of older adults who are not willing to simply sit back and cook like crabs in a pot along with their friends and acquaintances. Now we’ll begin to see if an exceptional group of individuals can actually do exceptional things with their remaining lives.

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Until then.

Love, Dudley