Golden Years, Golden Brain Learning

When I was a young girl, we travelled to Vancouver to visit my grandfather, who had just married his second wife. We were there to meet her. The only thing I remember is her perfume. She reeked of a cloying scent that attached itself to my clothes and skin. I was thankful that I quickly fulfilled my duties as the eldest child and retreated as fast as I could.

About the same time, I was told, no doubt by a disapproving friend, that my grandfather's first wife was small in stature but mighty in spirit. After all, she gave birth to and raised seven children, who all turned out to be hardworking, responsible citizens. I was told that after raising her children, she took classes, probably at the University of B.C. I'm sure she was in her golden brain years then.

Traditionally, the golden years are the years after retirement, usually at 65. I found this classic description of the golden years and almost spurted coffee all over my desk:

In our Golden Years seniors have a sense of freedom and leisure. Seniors have spent years raising families, working in the work place and meeting various responsibilities. In retirement seniors can pursue hobbies, travel, play pickleball, boccie ball, play games at senior centers, and spend quality time with their friends and loved ones. Seniors are free to sleep late and not be on a schedule, enjoying the fullness of life.

(What Are the Golden Years?)

This article, written in 2024, paints an idyllic picture of a different brain over 65 and is not my definition of the golden years or the golden brain. How can one devote their entire life to raising children while working a couple of jobs, or having a career for 40 years only to sleep late and not have a schedule? I laughed hysterically at being able to sleep late. Ask any elder over 70 whether they can stay in bed past 8am. My bladder is exploding by then. My dear sister-in-law, who is similar in age to me, has a schedule more rigorous than most 30-year-olds,caring for her granddaughter.

In my family, my mother died at 76 of Alzheimer's disease, and several relatives struggled with dementia in their last years. I wondered if I was going to go down that road, too. At well over fifty, I began a new learning career. Maybe going back to school would be good for my brain, I thought, or good enough to evade the destroying plaque that had run rampant in so many wonderful, smart relatives' brains.

This new learning career in my mid-fifties was a completely different type of learning from my music career, which spanned the previous 40 years. I figured I wanted to try something "brain-heavy" like real estate. It seemed like a really great fit as I was already doing interior design work with a local designer and could also do home staging. It was a good fit for the next 14 years, but the end of the pandemic and a persistent yearning to embark on a new journey signalled the end of real estate and the beginning of another learning career: the world of soul, healing, and intuitive studies.

With age and lots of work experience, I approached my seventies, and this world of study with an expanding intuition that prompted me to really listen to my body and my soul. Of course, I had to experience more pain to help me pay attention to my body and soul, and then do some heavy-duty healing work to be intuitive enough to hear them speak. After years of education at learning institutions and on the job, where my artistic side flourished and my logic and math side expanded, I was ready for what I call the golden years, golden brain learning.

It was taxing because I had to learn completely differently. I learned all my other careers from external sources. This career needed to be learned from sources within me. Could it be that this type of learning is how the golden brain functions best?

Some people know what they want to be and do early in life. They might have had a long, successful career because they were pursuing their purpose. Then retirement happened, and their life's work was over. Some reinvent their work and embark on a solo venture. Some begin a hobby they never had time for before, and some, at finally being released from their workplace, feel abandoned, face triple bypasses, divorce, or experience some kind of wake-up call. They may recover; they may not.

If we recover, that's when the golden years, golden brain kicks in. My father-in-law was a great example. After many years as a professor of religion and philosophy at a prestigious university, he changed course and ran the tech wing of a large corporation until he retired at 92 because of health concerns. Golden brains look for possibilities and love to learn, but there's a deeper side. We all remember the famous red or blue pill dialogue between Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix, but do you remember the conversation between Trinity and Neo below?

Trinity: I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.

Neo: What is the Matrix?

Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo. It's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.

(The Matrix Quotes)

What drives Neo is an elusive question that sets him on the hero's journey. In my late sixties, I asked myself the same type of driving question: what is this yearning I feel? There is no doubt the answer was seeking me just as much as I was seeking it. That's how I believe a "golden brain" works. It has an uncanny and brilliant way of getting to what's important in life, the really deep stuff most of us don't take the time to think about earlier in our lives.

You can call it using our golden brain, with experience, intuition, and a dash of wisdom if you like, but to start any journey worth pursuing at any age, the golden brain points the way and begins with the right question. Finding the one question that sparks the journey forward and takes us soaring into places beyond our wildest dreams, and way beyond our seventies, is the key that unlocks golden learning.