By the time we reach a certain age, many of us have developed at least a few rules of thumb by which to live. These rules offer an assurance and stability that help us navigate through heaving seas. Some of the rules may have been handed down to us by our parents; others are our own invention

To cite one that I have invented, let me regale you with my first law of economics: “Expect the level of your expenditures to rise inexorably until it meets the level of your income, or probably surpasses it.” This rule makes living with debt seem normal.

Writing books with such rules is a tradition that goes far back in English literature. The most famous American example dates to 1733 when Benjamin Franklin published his “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” That small volume comes filled with maxims designed to help readers live well.

Franklin’s sayings are pithy and pointed so that they have been often quoted. Among them is the famous dictum: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” The most recent edition of Bartlett’s Quotations has dozens more of them.

Now another rules maker has come along, namely Roger Rosenblatt, the writer and television commentator. His “Rules for Aging” is witty, acerbic, and ambiguously tongue-in-cheek. The book’s subtitle warns you what to expect: “Resist normal impulses, live longer, attain perfection.” Slight though it is, this slim volume will stir many readers to amusement and, occasionally, serious thought.

Rosenblatt provides 58 rules in all. Some of them are immediately clear and need no explanation. For example, “After the age of 30, it is unseemly to blame one’s parents for one’s life.”  The need for this rule is certainly confirmed by experience, even with people long past 30. Think of the current literary vogue whereby authors of allegedly mature years badmouth their parents for their own problems.

And in this same category: “Just because the person who criticizes you is an idiot doesn’t make him wrong.” In commenting on it, Rosenblatt instructs us: “Treat all criticism as if it has been produced by the monkey with the typewriter; that is, see it as a lucky shot that happened to hit the mark.”

The wisdom in this next one is easy to appreciate: “Never attempt to improve anyone, especially when you know it will help.” I blush to admit how recently I have violated this absolutely essential rule. Keeping it would have saved me much grief.

A favorite duo of mine are the what the author calls “male and female compatibility rules.” They go like this: “a) She’s right. b) He’s really thinking about nothing. Really.” No commentary from me putting a price on these two nuggets of wisdom is needed.

Other good rules follow but I will not show myself so shameless as to keep quoting from the book. Go read it yourself. If you like sophisticated playing with the vagaries of human experience, you will enjoy it. The investment of an hour or so to read it will amply repay your time. Even if you take offense at some of poor Roger’s sayings, you might still be tickled into a sharp riposte or two of your own.

Roger, of course, is sometimes clearly wrong. For example, he warns “Attend no opera that begins with the word ‘Der.’” And right after, “Attend no other opera.”

As an opera fan from teenage years who loves, among many others, Der Rosenkavalier, I take umbrage at these instructions. (At the moment of writing, I am listening to the Verdi orgy on WHRB, the Harvard student radio station, an action that would surely draw heavy fire from Rosenblatt.)

The author also does not give enough space to one of my prime rules of thumb, namely, do not expect things to turn out well. For many decades this approach of low expectations has served me remarkably well. Perhaps it derives from the character of the first paid job I ever had. It involved putting ten small red feathers into an envelope all day for a summer.

Or from my second, gathering sheets of papers from the editors’ desk at the old Boston Globe, putting them in a steel container, shoving the canister into a pneumatic tube and shooting it up to the composing room.

How could I reasonably expect ever to have much of a job after this kind of start in the world of work?

Roger Rosenblatt, however, seems ironic enough in his approach to the world that he would sympathize with my philosophy of low expectations. He suggests as much when he states that five minutes of happiness is about all one should look for. He thinks people deluded in expecting long periods of being happy.

Try that approach for improving your life.

Richard Griffin

Forty years ago, I felt excited about the inauguration of a new president. The ceremony in which Jack Kennedy took the oath of office amid much hoopla stirred in me pride and a new hope for the future. The idealism to which he gave expression in his eloquent speech to the nation promised that we Americans were entering upon a new era that would bring out the best in us all.

I will always remember, as those of us of a certain age do, that wintry day in Washington when the young man from Massachusetts called on us to ask what we could do for our country, rather than posing the question the other way around.

This past week my feelings were very different. The passage of decades has changed my outlook on many things: in particular I am no longer easily impressed by public officials. Maturity has given me a more realistic sense of how complicated national and international issues are and how intractable. Though leadership often makes a crucial difference, few people have the qualities of mind and heart needed to bring about a better world.

The ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency in particular disturbs me and makes me fear for the well-being of our nation. These feelings are grounded, not so much in the personality of the man, but rather in some of his basic values. It is upsetting to see take over the top position for at least four years someone who espouses public policy positions that I consider harmful to this country and the world.

To mention only five of the positions espoused by Bush II, I cringe at the prospect of large increases in military expenditures (especially for the missile shield), the despoiling of forests and other environmental treasures for the sake of industrial profit, reluctance to support gun control, refusal to back even mild measures for campaign finance control, and continued enthusiasm for imprisonment and capital punishment as answers to problems of crime.

These five positions and others championed by the new administration make me wince at what is happening to our country. I feel uneasy because of the values that underlie these policies. Excessive reliance upon military power and legalized violence rather than the slow, painstaking education of our people in the ways of peace seems to me self-defeating in the long run. Capital punishment, rampant gun use, and the dominance of money over everything else will, I fear, lead to a worse rather than a better society.  

In addition to these substantive issues I must confess not liking George W. Bush’s style.  Here is a man who went to Andover, Yale, and Harvard and yet he gives precious little evidence of caring about intellectual life. The joke about him having read a book when he was an undergraduate is a joke: the reason why we laugh in response is our recognition that W. does not in fact seem to care much about learning.

Nor does he evidence much personal interest in countries other than his own. Mexico counts as an exception but, in general, the former country of Texas seems to satisfy his cultural life. This I say, not out of prejudice against that state, but because I consider interest in the history and culture of other parts of the world to be a valuable quality in an American  president.

Some readers will undoubtedly find this column to be a mere exercise in political prejudice. They will see my words as those of a liberal Democrat disgruntled that one of his did not get to the White House.  

Instead, I intend this column as a further sharing of my own personal experience of growing older. As we age, often we find ourselves out of sympathy with what is happening in our society. Many people I talk to express disappointment, even disillusion with the organizations for which they have worked. They see things changing in ways that distress them because they are convinced that the changes do not serve the best interests of the organizations themselves or the people who work for them.

That’s the way I am feeling this week about the changes in national leadership. And I contrast these feelings with what I experienced forty years ago and at other times in our national life. Of course, I realize that the Kennedy administration did not fulfill the idealism that it professed. Nor did his successors who spoke grandiose words but did not follow through on their promises.

So while watching the inauguration last week I felt some pain. Perhaps W. and his allies will surprise us but whatever little wisdom that I have gained over the years gives me precious little confidence that any leader with the values that he has promulgated can give his fellow citizens what we really need.

Richard Griffin

Every once in a while one meets a person who represents history. To look into that person’s face is to be reminded of events that have made a notable difference in the world and continue to resound.

Such was my encounter with Freya von Moltke. Hers is not a household name, at least in most American families, but it reverberated in me when she introduced herself at a party following a concert last month at the New England Conservatory of Music. She had come, as did I, to listen to her sister-in-law, Veronica Jochum of Cambridge, play beautifully the piano music of Gunther Schuller, Brahms, Schubert, and Bach.

Freya von Moltke, now aged 88, is the widow of Helmuth James von Moltke who died in 1945, a hero of conscience at the hands of Hitler’s executioners. He bore a name celebrated in German history  for the military exploits during the Franco-Prussian War and World War I of his ancestors, the two famous Moltke generals.

In 1990 a book appeared called “Letters to Freya 1939-1945” that made available to readers of English the words that her husband sent to her in the years before his imprisonment and those that led up to his death. These letters provide a moving testimony to the man’s spiritual stature (and hers) as he faced the penalty for following conscience in the face of Hitler’s murderous regime.

This saga deserves to be better known because Helmuth was one of the relative few among believing Christians who worked to save Jews and to resist the Nazi atrocities against his country. Recognition of these actions and of her work since that time led Dartmouth College last spring to give an honorary degree to his widow Freya von Moltke.

A distinguished woman in her own right, Freya has preserved her husband’s memory, distributed the books and papers of one of his professors, and founded a publishing company. As she approaches ninety, she serves as a vital link with the German Resistance,  the story of which gives hope in the midst of the darkness of the Nazi era.

Helmuth was a leader of what is known as the Kreisau Circle, a group of Germans who felt anxiously concerned about what was happening to their country. In 1940, he gathered some people who shared his concerns in order to plan what principles should guide Germany after the war had ended.

Meeting in Kreisau (now named Krzyzowa and located in Poland), the  Moltke family estate, these men dealt with issues such as political structure, education, universities, and church/state relations. They had some variety of opinion with regard to a proposed attack on Hitler himself. Moltke usually favored nonviolence but, Freya has told me in a subsequent interview, “He was against silly wars but he was not a pacifist.”

His letters make clear that Helmuth had a deep religious faith that gave structure to his thought and his actions. The New Testament, from which he quotes frequently, provided inspiration in his terrible ordeals. He showed great courage as he faced death knowing that he was acting by the truth. The distortions of the Nazis could not make him lose sight of the scourge that was devastating his own country and much of Europe.

In his last letter Helmuth, as he awaited execution,  wrote: “Dear heart, my life is finished and I can say of myself: He died in the fullness of years and of life’s experience. This doesn’t alter the fact that I would gladly go on living and that I would gladly accompany you a bit further on this earth. But then I would need a new task from God. The task for which God made me is done. If he has another task for me, we shall hear of it. Therefore by all means continue your efforts to save my life, if I survive this day. Perhaps there is another task.”

The former estate of the Moltkes has become a center where young people can come and learn habits of peace and unity. When it was dedicated in 1989, the leaders of German and Poland came together as a Mass was celebrated to mark the beginning of a new era of peace and understanding among nations.

This history, both the terror of it and the new hope, came to my mind as Freya von Moltke introduced herself to me. To me she continues to represent the brave few who stood up against a murderous regime that had no respect at all for human rights and violated universal standards of human behavior.

I was a teenager during World War II, one who followed with rapt attention daily reports in the newspapers about the battles and other horrors of that great struggle. Had I then known of the Moltkes’ heroic efforts to combat Hitler and to plan for a future marked by peace and justice, I would have had reason for being more hopeful that some good might emerge from the catastrophe.

Richard Griffin

The early stages of the New Year demand a report on the current status of Phileas J. Fogg, our redoubtable cat. Like his human companions in our household, he appears to be aging remarkably well, all things considered.

On January first, in fact, he celebrated his tenth birthday, an anniversary that in the past would have made him quite old. However, the proprietor of our local pet store whose husband is a veterinarian, informs me that ten now qualifies only as middle age. Change has a ways of creeping up on us, doesn’t it?

This woman claims that her cat customers are now living twice has long as they did when she first started her business some twenty years ago. My guess at the reason for this increased longevity proved correct: scientific diet. The stuff that looks so unappetizing to me has the power, it seems, to lengthen feline life wondrously. If I ever thought I was going to get off easily by serving only one ten-year term of living with our beast, I have been sadly deluded.

So, clearly, was my friend the author Tom Lynch who in his most recent book “Bodies In Motion, Bodies At Rest,” promises on page 199: “By the time you read this, the cat will be dead.” But Tom was so severely provoked by his beast that I strongly suspect he was planning a desperate act of ailuricide rather than allowing nature to take its certain but slow course.

My conversation with the pet-store proprietor  mentioned above took place recently on the occasion of Phil boarding at her place of business for four days. Because of interior renovations in our house, he had to get out of it during that time. For him, it turned out to be a bitter exile; for me, it was a welcome first experience in a long time of living in a Phil-free zone.

When we came to pick Phil up after this exile, the store manager suggested that he could not possibly be that difficult at home; there he must surely be better behaved, she wanted to think. My wife Susan, though she felt impelled not to betray the whole truth about Phil, for fear of perjuring herself could only mutter something like “well, not all that better.”

So Phil’s reputation for decorum may have been seriously damaged in the community. If word gets around town, we will have to deal with even children knowing his real nature – –  untamed and ornery.

You would think, however, that his period of exile might have made Phil more appreciative of the sweet comforts of home. After four days of being confined to a small space, our house should now seem to him luxury in itself. And the face time he gets from us every day should have forced him to recognize when he is well off.

But, if he felt at all chastened, he was determined not to show it. Instead, Phil claimed all the same privileges he had enjoyed previously. In fact, he protested loudly at any moves on our part to limit his freedoms. Where we thought ourselves magnanimous toward him, Phil looked upon our largesse as simply his due.

Phil’s trip to the vet’s place was his first licit excursion outside the house in several months. From the vantage point of his carrying case, he had the chance to survey the scene on our street and to take in the winter vistas of nearby city blocks.

How that looked to him has not yet emerged but we presume it must have stirred dreams of freedom. As noted in this space previously, I would be glad to make those dreams a reality but find myself inhibited by the hardheaded approach of my wife and daughter. They seem resolved to keep Phil immune from the dangers of the street, insuring that he will live long.

Despite my willingness to expose him to the unexpected outside, I consider myself a fairly responsible cat manager. However, a chance encounter at a neighborhood party has made me enter into a period of doubt about whether I am fulfilling my basic duty toward Phil.

Among the guests at the party was a woman who felt guilty about having taken inadequate car e of her cat. What bothered her, she confessed to me, was that she had not flossed her cat’s teeth that day. She felt conscience-struck about this dereliction in her duty to take care of the animal’s dental health.

To show you how delinquent I have been, I must confess never once having imagined that I should floss Phil’s teeth. Perhaps my lack of awareness came from the unacknowledged desire never to get my fingers close enough to Phil’s mouth that I might lose any of them. In any event, I am sufficiently calloused not to have lost sleep over comparing myself unfavorably with the lady who flosses her cat’s teeth every day.

Richard Griffin