Keep Moving: And Other Tips and Truths About Aging by Dick Van Dyke
From the Goodreads synopsis page: Beloved Hollywood icon Dick Van Dyke will celebrate his 90th birthday in December 2015. He’s an established legend, having starred in Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. And yet he’s still keeping himself busy, entertaining America on television, movies, the stage, and social media. Everyone wonders, “How does he do it?” For the first time, Van Dyke shares his secrets and tips on old age: Just keep moving.
In a fun and folksy way of addressing readers, Keep Moving serves as an instruction book on how to embrace old age with a positive attitude. The chapters are filled with exclusive personal anecdotes that explore various themes on aging: how to adapt to the physical and social changes, deal with loss of friends and loved ones, stay current, fall in love again, and “keep moving” every day like there’s no tomorrow.
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My review: I will be putting some of my favorite anecdotes and quotes from the book in this review so if you don't like spoilers you may wish to look away or leave the room... Now. This was one of those gems that you breeze through and relish every bit. I read his first book, My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business , your pretty straightforward autobiography, of an icon; the tone of this new one is different, part autobiography part self help, but that doesn't really do it justice. Little tidbits he gifts to the reader about how he maintains so much joy at the age of 90. Life doesn't have to end at 60-70, it could be the best time of your life. Dick Van Dyke proves it can be done. This quote from the book shows part of the way he manages to do so:
"I am a child in search of his inner adult, though the truth is that I’m not searching too hard. I don’t recommend anyone doing so. That is the secret, the one people always ask me about when they see me singing and dancing, whistling my way through the grocery store or doing a soft shoe in the checkout line. They say, “Pardon me, Mr. Van Dyke, but you seem so happy. What’s your secret?”
What they really want to know is how I have managed to grow old, even very old, without growing up, and the answer is this: I haven’t grown up. I play. I dance with my inner child. Every day.
There.
Now you know the secret too."
A sense of humor is important, and resilience and flexibility dealing with the normal changes that come with getting older, and forging ahead anyway:
"These are lyrics I rewrote to the classic Disney song “The Bare Necessities” by Terry Gilkyson from the 1967 movie The Jungle Book. I hope you enjoy singing them as much as I do.
I’ve got that old senility,
that simple old senility.
Forgot about my trouble and my strife.
I mean that old senility.
I lost my old ability
to recognize my neighbors or my wife.
Wherever I wander,
wherever I roam
I go too far yonder
and can’t find my way home.
My glasses may be on my head.
I look everywhere else instead.
And then I look behind the door
and find the pair that I lost before."
He can get around better at 90 than sometimes I can at age 46 :) The idea is to keep moving, hence the title of the book. Stay active. Interact with your world and your fellow man. Stay curious:
"Stay involved in the world—and with other people. It’s important to keep up with current events. I watch the news every night—both sides—in case one of them is right. I argue with the right and the left and sometimes the middle too. But staying involved in the world also—and more importantly—means connecting with other people. Loneliness and isolation are major problems for people over sixty-five and typically lead to declining health, depression, and other serious issues. I am not an expert, but I do know the easiest and most meaningful way to counter this is to volunteer. Whatever you give, you get back many times over, including a sense of purpose, a profound sense that your presence in this world matters. For the past twenty years I have been involved with the Midnight Mission, a Los Angeles–based facility dedicated to helping men, women, and children who have lost everything return to self-sufficiency. I spend every holiday there; I don’t get the Christmas spirit until I am at the Mission. Early on I approached a large, mean-looking man and wished him a merry Christmas. The menacing look on his face disappeared—he smiled. “People look through us,” he says. “Or they look past us. Nobody sees us. But you’re looking right at me. That is one helluva gift, man.” His smile was an even bigger gift to me. And it has been that way ever since ....... The way we interact with people is what defines us and how we come to be defined. How we spend our time with them is what gives life meaning. You can look in the mirror to see the way you look on the outside. But the way family and friends regard you is a real measure of the way you look on the inside. ...... It is so much easier to help. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Help can mean writing a check. It can also mean sharing a smile or saying hello. One time when I was serving food to the homeless at the Midnight Mission in downtown L.A., a man seemingly in his forties recognized me and asked, “Why are you here?” It bothered me that we live in a world where he had to ask. “Why wouldn’t I be here?” I said."
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He has always has struck me as so kind and indeed happy, and his role as Rob Petrie has solidified his being categorized as the ultimate family man,conservative, self-deprecating father and husband of suburbia. One surprising revelation in this book is (as I also thought), most people think he is a conservative. I would politely agree to disagree with him, as he is supporting Bernie Sanders. Every man must vote his conscience and maybe he knows something I don't. And each man must also choose his own path. Dick Van Dyke in this book strikes me as a thinker, always looking for truth. This is evident in this next passage:
"As I have grown older and, hopefully, wiser, I’ve come to see that there are no sure answers, only better questions—questions that get us closer to the truth about whatever it is we want or need to know. Just knowing you don’t have the answers, in fact, is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn—and those are all good things.
..... It’s important to ask questions. Questions matter. Good questions matter even more. If you don’t have any questions, here are some to carry around in your pocket:
Why not me?
What can I do to help?
How can you be so sure?
Can I do better this time rather than next time?
What don’t I know that I should know?
What do I need to do next so that I don’t worry about not having done it?
Do I have everything I need as opposed to everything I want?
Am I using my time productively?
How can I use it better?
Do I like my work? If not, what would I like to do?
What’s missing? How can I fix that?
Am I okay with myself? If not, why?
Am I doing better?
How can I help other people do better?
Is my heart open?
Have I said I’m sorry to those who need to hear it?
Have I said I love you to those I want to tell?"
"The gift I have been given is the ability to make people feel good, and I can’t begin to describe how that has made me feel. I understand why people commit to a life of service—nothing brings more joy than making someone else feel good."
Pretty good advice, and wonderful ways to love your neighbor as yourself. When you serve and help your fellow man you are serving God. To try to improve yourself is taking good care of the body and mind that God entrusted to you. I don't know if he is a religious man or not, or to what degree. He brought it up in places but more in a " I know there is a higher Being that I respect" kind of way and leave the character building up to himself. I'd say, from what I've read, overall he's done a pretty good job in that department. Life wasn't all peaches and cream, as is no ones, but it was what he did with his life when he would hit those times. He would mope only so long then "keep moving". A lot of difficulty one has when one gets older is stagnation. And ageism from the younger generation as is seen in this next passage:
"As I passed the Tommy Hilfiger store something in the window caught my eye. I went inside for a closer look but quickly got the impression that the store wasn’t used to customers my age. Otherwise, I can’t imagine why the young saleswoman, after seeing me looking around, would have approached me and said, “Sir, I don’t think you’ll find anything here that you’ll like.”
It was not my first encounter with ageism, but it was the most blatant. Typically the remarks are subtler. Someone will come up to me and say, “Wow, you look good.” What they really mean is that they are surprised I am alive. Nobody said I “looked good” when I was thirty-five. Or someone will ask whether I have trouble remembering my lines or need cue cards written in EXTRA-LARGE TYPE or require a wheelchair getting to the elevator. Then there are the jokes we’ve all heard: “What were Adam and Eve like?” “Do you need help blowing out your birthday candles?” “At your age, I bet your back goes out more than you do.”
I get it. I’ve heard them—and more. And most of the time I laugh. But it’s time people got over the jokes, the fears, and the discrimination. Old age isn’t catchy. I understand the media is obsessed with youth. Fine. But there isn’t anything wrong with getting older. It happens. It’s healthy. And it is a reality—our reality. As the ranks of seniors and elderly grow, we should think of it as the new normal—a desirable new normal that does away with ageism and commands respect. How does this happen? I think we may need a revolution. We have gone through the Women’s Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Gay Rights Movement. Why not the Gray Rights Movement? .......I have a feeling that Baby Boomers get this, and they’ll rewrite the rules, making the concept of old age as it has been known obsolete. Stereotypes of old people as frail, forgetful, boring, cranky, sick, unattractive, and unproductive will be replaced by pictures of eighty-year-olds scaling mountains, starting new businesses, going back to school, creating great art, discovering new talents and passions, and figuring out new ways to improve life’s twilight years." ......
"Philosopher Alan Watts said as much in The Wisdom of Insecurity, a favorite book of mine that postulates that security does not exist, not in life and definitely not in the way people want and spend their time trying to ensure it—my younger self included. Watts argued what he called "the wisdom of insecurity.” He said that in order to live with less anxiety and a freer mind, you have to accept that insecurity is the rule. The best you could do, he said, was be fully present in the here and now—and get ready to be surprised."
"Other Tips and Truths About Old Age
TIP: Forgiveness is the best sleeping pill.
TRUTH: Yes, you wasted too much time worrying about things that didn’t matter
TIP: New experiences are the only things you can collect in life that end up being worth it.
TIP: Easy Street doesn’t exist. Stop looking for it or wishing you had found it."
You will find references through the book and videos on Youtube that he still dances as good as ever, albeit a little slower. Music and dancing are things that have helped to keep him young and to reach out to others. We are a social people, connections are important. Bolstering each other through the human touch is very important. We all share this same life with its same struggles and its so much easier when you don't have to do it by yourself:
"Listen to Bach, Benny Goodman, or Cole Porter, and then try to tell me music doesn’t make life more delightful, delicious, and de-lovely. I know for a fact it does. A few years ago I was singing with my quartet the Vantastix at a children’s hospital on the East Coast. We went from room to room, singing songs to groups of kids, roommates, and families. If we found a kid, we sang.
Doctors, nurses, and the kids themselves said the songs were the best medicine they had received, adding fun to the otherwise dreary and depressing routine of their hospital stay. The last room we entered was nearly dark, with just a small shaft of light sneaking in behind the drawn shades. A boy who looked to be about fourteen years old was lying on top of the bed, a single IV attached to his arm. He was painfully thin and bald. His eyes were closed. He was obviously very sick. Even though it seemed as if we might be disturbing him, the nurse who led us into his room nodded that it was okay to sing. We did a couple of songs, singing very softly, our voices careful to soothe and not disturb. He didn’t respond, didn’t open his eyes, and didn’t stir until we finished and started to tiptoe out. Then we heard a quiet voice, barely a whisper, say, “Would you please sing another one?” That alone is why music matters."
This next one shows his appreciation for the services rendered by his fellow men and women, I believe this quote was given in a speech when they were giving him a lifetime achievement award:
"I have lost track of all the award shows where Hollywood gives life achievement awards just for going to work and doing our job. I am not complaining or criticizing, but there is a long list of those who do the same thing and don’t get the accolades. Teachers. Doctors. Inventors. Nurses. Parents who ensure that their child will be the first in their family to get a college education. Volunteers. People who hold sick babies in the hospital. The list goes on."
And, last but not least a few miscellaneous passages that struck me as interesting:
A conversation between Dick Van Dyke and Carl Reiner:
"ME: What advice do you have for younger people?
CARL: Be who you are. If you can, if you can afford to, do only things that please you.
ME: Unfortunately so many people don’t like their jobs. They hate their work. If you love your work, it’s like play.
CARL: That’s right. If you can’t do what you love in order to make a living, find a hobby that you can’t wait to get to after work. You need passion and joy in your life. Family. Love. Passion. And joy."
"In a way I applied my principles to my work, making it a rule long ago not to work on any projects that my children couldn’t see."
How many have the the following opportunity!?:
"About ten years into my first marriage we moved to a two-hundred-acre ranch in Cave Creek, Arizona, an area north of Scottsdale. Today Cave Creek is fully developed, with homes and shopping malls, but back then it was empty desert almost as far as you could see. Our house was in the middle of nowhere. A creek ran past on one side, and the other side was a wall of sandstone cliffs. The entire mesa, nearly as far as I could see, was part of the ranch. I used to ride a minibike straight across the rugged landscape when I needed to touch base with civilization.
One day when we were hiking, one of my kids spotted a shiny rock. A few minutes later we unearthed an ax head. The digging commenced then and there. The whole family got into it. We noticed partially exposed rocks that were pretty geometric; they turned out to be pottery. Over several years we dug down about five feet until we uncovered an entire village."
This was a solid 4 stars, deeply engaging and uplifting book. Any and all Dick Van Dyke fans would love it and even non-fans would too. Good advice but not too deep, he kept it positive, light, cheery about like his softshoe dance. :) One final parting quote:
" If you are already old, congratulations, you now know what I know! There is no finish line. Stay open to whatever happens. Don’t be scared of dying. Be more frightened that you haven’t finished living. Make living a life achievement."
I couldn't have said it better. Kudos, Mr. Van Dyke and a job well written.
**I received this book as an advanced reader copy from Netgalley.com**
