Oldish: Purpose, Chapter 1

Purpose Chapter 1 transcript

Gregg: [00:00:00] When I was a couple weeks short of my 70th birthday, I started thinking about my mother's mother who lived to be a hundred and her mother, who lived to be 102, and my father who lived to be 90. I began to think that maybe our generation could be the first to routinely live to be 100. When I talked about this at family dinner one night, my granddaughter who was five, said, 

Granddaughter: what are you gonna do for the next 30 years?

Grandpa, 

Janet: hello, I'm Dr. Janet Price. 

Gregg: And I'm Greg kaust. And we are Oldish, and this is our podcast Oldish. 

Janet: If you're oldish. Someone who is, please join us every week for conversations amongst ourselves 

Gregg: and our special guests 

Janet: about what it means to be oldish in the 21st century. 

Gregg: If you ever wonder whether you're getting old, you're oldish, what are you going to do for the next 30 minutes?

Hi, I'm Greg. And I'm Oldish. 

Janet: Hi, I'm Janet. And [00:01:00] I'm Oldish. Welcome to this episode of our podcast, oldish Conversations on Aging in the 21st Century. Hi Greg. 

Gregg: Hi Janet. How are you today? 

Janet: I am awesome. I am thinking about purpose and what does purpose mean for us as Oldish. I know we've talked about it often.

Here in our conversations. I just thought I'd bring it up again. It's kind of on my mind. 

Gregg: Yeah, it's probably a good idea to expand on it once in a while. We talk about it like it's on a bulleted list. But I don't think we've ever expanded on it very much. Occasionally we do, but we haven't expanded on it or attempted to define it or talked about the varieties of purpose that would work or could work or any of that stuff.

So part of our purpose in our Oldish podcast is to expand on the understanding of what it means to be oldish, as well as how to go about doing some of it. Part of our purpose is to. Expand [00:02:00] that conversation. 

Janet: Mm-hmm. 

Gregg: So we should expand that conversation a little bit every once in a while. 

Janet: Yes. And when I think about the purpose of our podcast and we've had on such interesting guests talking about the purpose they've chosen in their old ishness, sometimes I have a fear that some of our listeners might think.

I'm not gonna be happy unless I'm out there climbing in Nepal or I am traveling to Thailand or starting a new business. Those are all great, and that's a great choice for purpose or great following a purpose. I sometimes, I'm afraid, or I have fears that people listening might not have the ability to do those kind of grand next steps in their ishness.

So I am glad for this opportunity. To look at the continuum of possibilities around purpose. So when we read the literature that says, as people age, it's very important [00:03:00] to have a purpose. So maybe today, expand a little bit on what does that mean exactly? Does it mean riding across the country on a motorcycle purpose, or what else might it mean?

Gregg: In our most recent book club, we talked about riding across the country on a horse purpose. But it wasn't conceived by the person doing it as a grand purpose. She just said, I've always wanted to go to California. How am I gonna get there? Well, I got a horse and you know, just one thing followed another one step in front of the next.

And so having a grand purpose, one of the things that people say to me a lot is, why don't you start whatever I was talking about? Why don't you do that as a business or. And I had for my entire working life, the grand purpose of making a successful business, I don't have that purpose anymore, but smaller things like doing this podcast, for example, there are many aspects of doing a podcast [00:04:00] that could be regarded as starting a business.

The part that I'm leaving out of it so far is I don't wanna do this for a living. I don't wanna have. All of the commitments that are required to have that large scale purpose. But I like having the small scale achievable steps I don't have in mind that will save the world by having our podcast. I have in mind that it wouldn't be bad to make it a little bit better, but small scale.

So it's incremental in that my purpose today is to. Let's record a podcast. And so within the context of a little bit larger purpose, but I don't have any sense that I wanna build a podcast that'll save the world. I don't want to build a podcast for the purpose of getting famous or making a lot of money or meeting many, many famous people or any of that.

I just, you know what? Let's have a conversation once [00:05:00] in a while. So a purpose can be small. Or it can be small parts of a larger purpose. I do think it would be great to save the world. Um, there are ways to do it. I'm convinced and always have been that the way to save the world is to enhance compassion.

And the way to enhance compassion is to enhance communication. And a good way to enhance communication is to have conversations. So it's all, in a sense, it's part of a larger purpose, but the activity itself doesn't look like a large purpose, I hope. 

Janet: So a few things you just were talking about that I think are worth noting is you said sometimes it's putting one step in front of the next and seeing where that leads kind of purpose.

Um. One is that we change our purpose. We change what we think our purpose is over time. Sometimes not by choice, but you know, the purpose might [00:06:00] be when we're younger to change the world by working at this place and whatever that might look like, uh, that might have changed as we've gotten older. But rather than our purpose being gone and not having a sense of purpose, which I think very easily leads to depression and hopelessness and passivity, we can think, well, what would our purpose be now?

You also said something which was, what do I want? What do I want to do now? And I think that's a key part of oldIshness whenever we can, is what do I want? And then have, along with that, what do I want and what would be the next step that would be a challenge, but a doable challenge. So, you know, I wanna change the world, but what does that look like at 72 or whatever age we are?

Um, so I wanna read a, a sentence or two from an issue of the magazine, psychology Today. It was the January [00:07:00] February, 2026 issue, and the title was The Paradox of Purpose by Jordan Grumet. MD and it's all about what we're talking about right now. What does it mean to have a purpose that is possible, that is also meaningful, is doable, and we want to do it?

He mentioned the term purpose anxiety, and I think that might be common in. The oldish community is, what do I do now? What is my purpose? I, I can't do this anymore. I can't do that for whatever reason. Health reasons, financial reasons, family reasons, and it can create a purpose anxiety. Uh, but the end of his article, he said, purpose isn't just about achieving something monumental.

It's about finding meaning in the small everyday moments that light you up. 

Gregg: Oh, I like that. 

Janet: Yeah. And that's something I've often [00:08:00] imagined aging as I went through my adult life, just wondering what is it like? And the examples I'm seeing is that it is, are there more possibilities? Um, and I think it that.

This fits into that, that it's about. So if I imagine myself someday, if I live long enough that I am basically not very mobile and those kinds of physical limitations that I can still look for, meaning in the small everyday moments that light you up. So whatever age I am. So whether that means talking to my grandchild or my grandchild on the phone, or smiling and saying hi to the mail carrier or anything, even though it might seem so small, so elementary, but it brings human connection, 

Gregg: ah, human connection is a good purpose to have.

I, I still have [00:09:00] days when I wake up in the morning. Or sometime during the day feeling kind of glum. And one of the expressions that I use to describe my glumness to myself is, what am I supposed to do? You know, what am I for? Which is one of the language constructs in my head about purpose is what am I for anyway?

I find meaning and purpose on a fairly regular basis. Some days what I'm for is to drive my grandson to karate. That's one of the things that I'm for is the, IS for my grandchildren and. Backing up from that, I still have the same purpose I had when I was in my twenties, which was my children. They played a huge part of what was I for and what was I for, was to bring the world, these beautiful people that are my children.

And some days I, I look around and I said, well, what am, what am I doing this for? What am, you know, [00:10:00] what's 

Janet: mm-hmm. 

Gregg: Where, what's my purpose? What's driving me? Mm-hmm. The way that I get out of that is I say, well, I don't wanna be driven. I did that for a long time. I drove myself. I was driven by something was catching up with me, or I was driven to make a difference, or I was driven to be famous, or I was driven to be rich, or I was driven to be this, or driven to be that.

I don't wanna be driven anymore. I don't mind driving. I drive a lot. I like that, but I don't, I don't wanna be driven. I don't wanna have to. Do something. 

Janet: Mm-hmm. 

Gregg: So that's how I usually get myself out of it, is I don't want that big P purpose in order for the human race to achieve its purpose as many people as possible need to be engaged in the purpose of just being human.

Janet: Yes. And that is the word that came my mind was dilemma. I dunno if it's a dilemma, but that is the challenge. As we age is what [00:11:00] is possible? What does that little P purpose look like in each of our lives, and can we see it and notice it and celebrate it and realize that it's lighting you up? Lighting us up?

Gregg: Yeah. 

Janet: So we can miss it. If we're thinking about the big P purpose, we might miss the small P experiences of purpose that come to us and that we create. 

Gregg: I try to imagine sometimes what it would be like. To be old already. That's why we talk about ishness 'cause mm-hmm. I don't feel old already, but sometimes I imagine.

What would that feel like to be old already? And I think every day when I say to myself, what's the point, what's my purpose? Not having a good answer, I think probably would contribute to oldness. What I found in, uh, there was a period of time, um, within very recent memory where I played pickleball all the time and.

My purpose. Occasionally my brain would say, well, the [00:12:00] purpose is to get really good at pickleball. And I rejected that fairly early on, and I decided that one of the purposes was to cheer people up who were playing pickleball. And I went, so I went to play pickleball in the morning, and my goal was to make people laugh while they were playing and to help people understand that the point is not to win.

The point is to play . Yeah. Or even the point is to just show up. 'cause not everybody's gonna be a great pickleball player. I, I gave up on that idea fairly early on in order to be a great pickleball player. It'd be handy if you could run and bend over and jump and had good eye hand coordination and all of that athletic stuff.

None of which I have anymore. So what else do I do? I said, well, how about make people laugh while you're playing? And that's an achievable purpose. Is to, you know, just put a smile on somebody's face today. Or if you can't, maybe go to [00:13:00] where they are, where they're not smiling, so they're not alone and they're not smiling.

Janet: I was just thinking about how many books we've talked about in this podcast that was about purpose. Maybe they all are, but my, the book that popped into my head was the Woman who Goes to the South Pole to look at penguins and her purpose. Was to save penguins and she did all of that. But I'm also thinking about.

Maybe sometime we could do a podcast on short films because two short films came out this year. Well, in 2025, one is called, I think I have these titles right, A Small Unwinding or a Slow Unwinding. And it's all about a man who doesn't know his purpose 'cause his, uh, wife has died and he just can't figure out what his purpose is.

How that, what happens. And then the other one is called A Friend of Dorothy, which I learned recently used to be a [00:14:00] secret code for someone who is gay, looking for others that they could connect with. But this is more about an older woman who's nearing death and meets a friend. And how she felt like she didn't have any purpose.

And at the very end of her life, she finds that she can have some purpose and it's, they're both lovely. And it's that idea of it can be, uh, as the article said, finding meaning in the small everyday moments that light you up. 

Gregg: One thing, before we go away from that, maybe we need to have a, we have an oldish.

Book club. Maybe we should have an oldish movie night. 

Janet: I would love that. 

Gregg: Yeah. Yeah. Let's pick a movie that might have oldish themes in it. And we sort of did with one of the books that we read that had a movie made out of it with Robert Redford and 

Janet: Jane Fonda. 

Gregg: I think you're right. I think it was Jane Fonda.

Yes. So Robert [00:15:00] Redford and Jane Fonda in this movie. Yes. And so we sort of did, 'cause we all saw the movie and we talked about it while we were talking about the book. Let's do that. Let's find somebody to watch movies with us and do an oldish movie night. Um, 

Janet: I like that idea. 

Gregg: Yeah. But also, well you mentioned a friend of Dorothy and I went looking for that this morning and I found that there's.

Uh, another short film that's called Friends of Dorothy, which talks about why that code means what it does, 

Janet: ah, 

Gregg: uh, and um, that's available. And it was actually quite interesting, one of the main narrators was someone in drag talking about what it might all mean, including the Cowardly Lion. And it was pretty funny what I saw of it.

Um. But I had no idea. 

Janet: Yeah. 

Gregg: Yeah. I had no idea. So those short films would probably be easier to talk about than a long film. Mm-hmm. So having a purpose, I'm reminded a lot these [00:16:00] days because as you know, my brother passed away a couple months ago, um, and part of settling his estate is that. In exchange for taking care of our elderly parents as they declined and passed away, my sister and I and my father granted him life tenancy in the house where we grew up, where my parents had still lived.

Um, and so I'm sitting in the living room down there trying to figure out what to do with my brother's stuff. And I look around and the house that I'm in is. 99% of the stuff that's in the house is stuff that my parents put there. 'cause we never did the part of disassembling my parents' house, which I think many people have the experience of doing.

When their parents pass away, they disassemble their house and they deal with all of that stuff. So I'm spending a lot of time sitting in the living room that I grew up [00:17:00] in, surrounded by the stuff that was in the living room when I was growing up. Um, and so I'm spending a lot of time talking to my parents in my head, and my father had a huge purpose.

In addition to raising his family, he had a career. He was an engineer at the General Electric for 40 years. He went to work in the same place for 40 years, so that was a huge part of his purpose. Another part of his purpose was his marriage to my mother. They were married 64 years when she passed away.

Um, and another part of his purpose was being friends of his friends. And another part of his purpose was he had brothers and a sister. And so a big part of his purpose was being the, what he called the patriarch of the family and making sure that everybody was in touch with everybody and he was always calling his friends and his.

Brothers and his cousins on the phone. And [00:18:00] then toward the end of his life, his job was gone. He retired and then my mother died. It wasn't immediately, but my mother died not too long after they retired and they had a retirement purpose, which was to spend money and travel a little bit. But then my mother died, his friend started to die off.

His best friend passed away His. His brothers all died. His sister died, and so many things, and his kids moved away. And then my brother moved back in and part of his purpose in life was to manage that relationship. And so he sat in his chair wondering what his purpose was Often. 

Janet: Mm. 

Gregg: But one of the things that he found to do was the town built a senior center within sight of my parents' house.

Um, and he would walk over there every day and hang out with people and he decided that they needed to play poker. So he started [00:19:00] twice weekly poker games. So that was, you know, it was a little purpose. It was a purpose to keep him. Going and a purpose to socialize with other people and to . Provide some little bit of purpose.

'cause I'm sure that there are people who went to the senior center 'cause they wanted to play poker. 

Janet: I'm amazed at, uh, I'm learning more and more about the. Potential of the senior center in people's lives and the function of the senior center, and I'm looking forward to checking it out when I'm not working as much and seeing what's there, what I could offer as far as a purpose with others who come and also just enjoy it as a participant.

Gregg: I hadn't thought of this until just now, so thank you for putting this in my head. The senior center that I was just talking about that my father went to, had evolved from a senior center that my parents started in the town many years before. Hmm. And it went from [00:20:00] the basement of the Catholic Church to the Knights of Columbus Hall to the, the town, helped them buy this big old building across the street from the police station.

And they served lunches and started a senior center there. Then when they built the new high school in town, they decided that they would build a senior center next to it for a number of reasons, but also to have a good place all on one floor. Nobody had to take an elevator or anything. All a good place for a whole variety of seniors to go and do stuff.

And I can see it when I look out the window at my parents' house, I can see the senior center. 

Janet: Wow. 

Gregg: I'm a senior, I think, I think this is gonna be a tough one for me to do, but I think I'm gonna go over there and check out the senior center. 

Janet: Mm-hmm. 

Gregg: And I'm pretty sure that at least some of the staff will remember my father, he died 

Janet: Yeah.

Gregg: 12 years ago, but um, he died in the foyer of the [00:21:00] senior center. Wow. So I'm sure that even if there's nobody there that remembers him, there's a legend. I, I don't know whether I've ever told this story on the podcast, but because of my parents' involvement in the early stages and continuing on for many, many years with the senior center, there was a plaque in the foyer of the senior center with my mother's name on it, and my father was standing in front of that plaque, choosing not to go to the poker game that day, but to go and see a friend who was coming to visit him.

When the senior center staff came out and said, Jerry, where are you going that we're about to start playing poker? He said, I'm going home to hoop it up and dropped down dead. The doctor said he was dead before he hit the floor. Wow. So I have this picture standing in front of a plaque with my mother's name on it.

I'm pretty sure that she snatched him. 

Janet: Mm-hmm. 

Gregg: She and I can hear her saying it. Gerald, hurry up. Just [00:22:00] 

Janet: I've waited long enough. 

Gregg: Long enough. Get 

Janet: over here. 

Gregg: Yeah. So. I know that that's legendary. It has to, you know, if it's not, those people are in worse shape than I thought, but that has to be a legend in the senior center.

 I'm gonna go over there. I'm a senior now, you know, I don't even have to feel out of place. 

Janet: That's right. 

Gregg: I won't be the oldest person there. That's when I used to go there with my father. I was in my early sixties. Um, and I used to like, I'm not old enough to be in here, but I'm now, 

Janet: yes. Good. That's a really good idea.

And see what purpose looks like from that vantage point. 

Gregg: Yeah. See what purpose looks like and I'll carry with me a purpose of wanting to check up on, on how my parents are doing over there and also, um, tell people about the podcast. 

Janet: Yes. 

Gregg: Yeah. 

Janet: Yes. 

Gregg: Maybe. We'll, maybe we'll broadcast the podcast from there.

Sometime we'll do a, we'll do a live podcast from the senior center. 

Janet: That sounds like [00:23:00] fun. 

Gregg: Yeah. It could be fun. Could be. Mm-hmm. Totally scary, but, 

Janet: mm-hmm. 

Gregg: Uh, so my purpose is to get over being scared of all these little things that I've been scared of my whole life and 

Janet: mm-hmm. 

Gregg: I actually have, my purpose these days is to, um, stay alive until I'm not.

And also to be fully alive before it's too late. 

Janet: Mm-hmm. 

Gregg: So I'm working on that. So, 

Janet: sounds like a wonderful purpose for every age. 

Gregg: Yeah. Visiting with you is part of that, you know, it's part of my strategy is to spend time with Janet often, uh, because things happen. Like, I wasn't gonna go to that senior center, but now I am.

Janet: Mm-hmm. 

Gregg: So, Uh, so a little spark of joy, is that what the, is that what that quote is? 

Janet: Moments that light you up, but I like sparks of joy also. 

Gregg: Yeah. Okay. We'll, we'll go with both of that. 

Janet: Well, I agree, Greg. As we were talking, I was thinking this is a purpose that we've had [00:24:00] for almost five years now.

Gregg: Almost four. 

Janet: Almost four years. That brings moments that light me up. 

Gregg: I was looking for a file on my computer the other day, and I came across a recording. From March of 2022 and I had no idea what it was, 'cause it had, the date was in the name of the file and no idea what it was. So I said, well, what do I need this for?

So I looked at it and it was us recording the intro for our podcast in March of 2022. Oh yeah. That 

Janet: fun 

Gregg: blast blast from the past. 

Janet: Yeah. 

Gregg: Yep. I was in the guest bedroom at my sister's house. Four years. Yep. Four years this month. And it was just before my sister passed away and I was in the guest room at her house.

Janet: Wow. 

Gregg: Yeah. So okay then. All right. Do we wanna say anything [00:25:00] else before we wrap up? 

Janet: I just think it's a such an important topic, especially for oldish people and. To understand that we can always have a purpose. It just made me think about my mom when she was dying and she was in the hospital. She was in the hospital for about a month before she died, and I think if we looked back and asked her, what do you think your purpose was at that time?

Very easy. Could have been. I don't have a purpose. My body is failing me. I'm dying. But her purpose turned out to be to cheer up all the people who worked with her. Bring a light into their lives each day. So that was her purpose, even as she was dying. 

Gregg: Perfect. Alright then. So we'll call this purpose chapter one, and we'll return to this fairly often I think, because I don't think we've said everything that can be said, but I think we've said everything we're gonna say today.

Janet: [00:26:00] Yes. I think that's a great idea. Purpose chapter one. 

Gregg: Okay, then. Well, thanks Janet. This has been great as usual. 

Janet: Thanks, Greg. 

Gregg: Not as usual as always. This has been great. 

Janet: Yes. 

Gregg: Okay, well, um, till 

Janet: next time. 

Gregg: Till next time. Yep. Bye folks. Bye, Janet. 

Janet: Bye everybody. Bye, Greg. 

Gregg: That's it for now. Thanks for listening. We are very glad that our purpose in life includes you and vice versa.

Please share with us and our listeners how you may have found or created purpose in your ishness on our website at www.oldish.meoronoursubstackatoldishpodcast.substack.com. There will be many more conversations coming up. Stay tuned. You can leave comments or requests for topics or guests. On this are other episodes at www dot oldish me.[00:27:00] 

There's a link there too. If you've wondered how you can help support our podcast, if you like what you heard today, please tell a friend and rate and review our podcast on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.