Monkeys and squirrels—the dangers of aging

 I just finished reading Spare, Prince Harry’s fascinating memoir of his upbringing as a royal and his struggles to become a person in his own right. The book is an honest account (as much as I can tell) without an unnecessary trashing of the royal family. It presents the royals as human beings pressured by the unhuman expectations laid on British royalty. I enjoyed reading his side of the story, although I know there are other sides yet to be aired.

The section I want to highlight here concerns Harry’s experience in the British military, where he was deployed to the war zones of Afghanistan. Part of his training was as a helicopter pilot, a training that is rigorous and time-consuming. He describes the particular difficulty of mastering the art of hovering. He learned that the two dangers that threaten the ability to stabilize a hovering helicopter are the “hover monkeys” and the “head squirrels.”

In his own words,

… flying the helicopter, I learned, wasn’t the hard part. Hovering was. At least six long lessons were devoted to this one task, which sounded easy at first and quickly came to seem impossible. In fact, the more you practiced hovering, the more impossible it seemed.

The main reason was a phenomenon called “hover monkeys.” Just above the ground a helicopter falls prey to a fiendish confluence of factors: air flow, downdraft, gravity. First it wobbles, then it rocks, then it pitches and yaws—as if invisible monkeys are hanging from both its sides, yanking. To land the helicopter you have to shake off those hover monkeys, and the only way to do that is by … ignoring them. [p. 165]

       Hover monkeys threaten the helicopter from the outside. The other danger comes from inside the pilot’s brain: the head squirrels. A novice pilot needs to learn to fly a helicopter, not just technically, but tactically. He needs to learn to multitask—read a map, locate a target, talk on the radio, fire missiles, and pee into a bag, sometime simultaneously. The head squirrels romping inside the brain—fears, emotions, memories, a girl friend back home—“are the ancient enemies of human concentration,” Harry was told by the instructor. He concluded that what he needed was “a massive neuro-reengineering” in his brain. “The only way to get rid of head squirrels” his instructor went on, is “iron discipline. A helicopter is easily mastered, but the head takes more time and more patience.” [p. 169]

Here I am, again, pulling metaphors out of the air (or, in this case, out of a book). I am seeing that monkeys and squirrels are two dangers we face in the process of growing older, one danger coming from the outside and one from in our heads.

The monkeys are real. It’s not easy growing old. (Pardon the cliché.) Our bodies really are on a downhill trajectory. Ask anyone with a bad back if it’s real or not. Around us friends and family members are dying, and any more, they’re not those older than us; they’re our peers. We face the inevitability of our own death, perhaps preceded by mental debilitation.

In addition to the losses of health and loved ones, we face the loss of livelihood, of stuff, of the family home, of the energy to travel and have adventures, of the ability to be productive and contribute, of a sense of significance, and so on. Sorry to be so negative. But the monkeys are real.

The mind squirrels are our reactions to all of the above. I’ve noticed, as I’m sure you have too, that different people respond in different ways. Some face the realities of aging with determination to live a meaningful life right to the end. Others moan, whine, and pine away, or at least approach that dark road. I suppose we’re all tempted. Facing the mind squirrels has to do with attitude, of course, with intentionality and determination. And with taking practical steps to ensure that this time of life is also one of growth.

I’m going to stop writing this stuff now, lest the blog sink into an advice column. Besides most of you have thought about this, and there are excellent resources to help us with the monkeys and the squirrels (for example, Joan Chittister’s optimistic book, The Gift of Years).

I need to confess where this metaphor breaks down, as most metaphors do. It’s the idea of this time of life as a hovering. Between what and what? Between life and death? Between health and decay? Between purpose and futility? No! I disagree. We’re not hovering at all. We’re living. We’re here and the time is now.

The same choice that God gave to the children of Israel as they were about to enter the promised land, that choice he gives to us today.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses … that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…. [Deuteronomy 30:19-20]

It’s a choice God gives to all his people, no matter their age. So, in a sense, we all hover, but our choices determine the outcome.

Well, I said I wouldn’t give advice. Also, I’m known to hate easy answers. But here I am, about to offer you wise (or otherwise) counsel in the form of an easy answer. Are you ready? Here it is:

Tame the monkeys and stop feeding the squirrels.

I wonder if Prince Harry, though still young, might agree with me.