Hello, and welcome to the Hey Boomer Show. The show

for those of us who believe we are never too old to set

another goal or dream a new dream. My name

is Wendy Green, and I am your host for Hay Boomer.

And today is my birthday. My 70th

birthday, and I am feeling so grateful

and blessed with all the love and good wishes that I have

been receiving this birthday, and I can think of

no better way to return this love and appreciation

Then to offer you the conversation today with Rob

Schwartz, the son of Maury Schwartz, the beloved

professor, from Tuesdays with Maury.

In the early 2000, Rob discovered the

manuscript that was to become the beautiful book,

The Wisdom of Morey. After much

family discussion, It was decided that Rob should

edit and have the book published.

Maury wrote this manuscript between 1988

1992 before he was diagnosed with the

ALS that they talk about in Tuesdays with

Maury. Rob had the

opportunity to discuss the book with his dad while his

dad was writing it. In the wisdom

of Maury, Maury shares his thoughts on things like

aging joyfully. and the discrimination

and pain of ageism. He talks about becoming the

best person we can be. Maury discusses

morals and ethics and living a meaningful life,

finding hope when we feel that there is none.

And as I was reading, and I felt like I was reading his personal journal,

and each part of it caused me to stop and think and

reflect and, you know, try to internalize

it. It's not a book to be

read quickly. As Maury says in the introduction,

take the time to think about it issue carefully.

Look at it from many sides and talk about it. Perhaps

even in a discussion group, talking with friends,

peers, and family is crucial.

You may benefit from keeping a journal of your thoughts and reactions.

Allow the time the ideas they

deserve and think about them.

Maury dedicated his life to helping people understand their

relationships to society, other people and

themselves. This book The

wisdom of Laurie is his gift to us, and

this conversation is my gift to you.

So we have less than an hour to talk about this, and I wanna get

right into it. So I'm gonna bring Rob on and do a brief

introduction so that we can start our conversation. Hey, Rob.

Hey, Wendy. Thanks for being with me

today. I'm so excited. my honor, and thank you for

having me on your momentous occasion of your 70. I didn't

realize it was your 70 You look fantastic, by the way. I

never would have guessed. Well, thank you. Thank you. You

know, us boomers, we all are, like, evolving in a

different way these years. Right. Right. I have something to

say about the whole boomer thing. Maybe we can leave that to the end. Not

that there's anything wrong with Boomer, but, you know, why I get lumped in with

the Boomers and I don't feel like a Boomer at

all. Right? because I'm right at the end of what's supposed to be a

boomer, but, you know, the difference between being born in 1945 and,

like, 1963, it's pretty gigantic It's a big

difference there. Yeah. There is a big difference. Okay.

Alright. Well, let me do a brief intro, Rob. Give them a little bit

above your your background. Sure. Okay.

So Rob Schwartz is a writer, producer, and entrepreneur.

His work has appeared in time Newsweek, Variety,

a Hollywood reporter interview, and Melody maker among

others. He was a script editor at

NHK World TV for 14 years and has

been an Asia correspondent for Billboard Magazine since

2008. In 2005, he founded

the electro rock crossover label, diagnostic records

in Japan. Rob also produces

feature films, including Putty Hill in 2010

and Bernard and Huey in 2017.

He actively invests in tech based startups

and is currently a partner in the virtual concert creation

platform, Washpit. Wow.

You're busy. Yeah. Try my best. You know?

And now you're a writer and editor your dad's

magazine. that's your dad's book. Sorry.

Book. That's okay. Yep. So so let's the context of the book, The

Wisdom of Mori, you say it was written between 1988

1992. and that you had the opportunity to discuss it with

your dad while he was writing it. So tell tell us

about your discussions and your interactions with your dad.

Sure. So a little bit of background first. I was a, like,

a prodigal son. I skidded off to Asia at the first

opportunity after I graduated from university. And I was

there for a couple of years traveling and working.

And in the summer of 1989, I came back home

to the family house, which was in Newton, Massachusetts. Mitch describes

it so eloquently in Tuesday with Maury with the maple tree in

front that house. And I lived at home

for 3 months before I returned to Asia. This was a sort of a low

for me. Didn't have a job. you know, I was preparing

to go back to Asia. So I was with my dad pretty much every

day, and he was right in the middle of working on this book. So I

had the opportunity to sit with him and talk with him about his

ideas and share stuff with him. And it was a little funny

because, you know, I was in my twenties, you know, mid

twenties at this time. And he was writing a book about

aging, but he was really interested to bounce the ideas off me

and see what I thought and see how he thought that I felt they

would be received and stuff like that. So I had a great

background in this book, and it's, you know, it's it's very serendipitous

that I just happened to be home during those 3 months that he

was writing the book because pretty much the rest of the time, I that's

the last time I lived at home. I mean, I visited a lot,

and I was certainly with my father a lot while he was ill. but I

had a residence in Tokyo, and I was living in Tokyo for many, many

years, including basically the whole rest of the time my father was

alive. after, you know, that 3

months in 1989. So it was it was

really wonderful to be able to share that time with him and, you

know, get a hold of his ideas. He he really felt motivated

to write this book because in 1986,

he had been more or less forced to retire from Grand Dice

University. This used to be a thing. It's not really a thing anymore for

professors but in those days, at 70,

they basically pushed you out. They tried to have him retire at 65,

and he refused. And then again, at 68, and he refused

again. And at 70, they said, yeah. You don't have any choice. So

that was 1986. And he

was thinking about this whole concept of that

society viewed him as an aging person. He

never viewed himself that way. And he was always

around young people and full of energy and full of vibrancy as

you can get from this book, but he realized that society

viewed him that way, and he didn't really like it. And

he had to investigate why am I do I have a problem with

this? and he sort of realized that he had this internalized

ageism, which he discusses in the beginning of the book.

and he realized that it's so pervasive that we just have

this negative image of people over a certain age that, you

know, can't do anything. They should just go sit corner and leave

people alone, and he just thought this is so wrong and so

poisonous. And that's what motivated him to write the book.

That's so interesting. I I mean, there's a couple of things that come up for

me as you say that. One is his discussion

about ageism I think we're so far ahead of his time. I mean,

that's become like a buzzword these days. You know, we talk

about ageism as the last ism

that's being addressed in the in the workforce. Yes. And your dad was talking

about it in 1988. That's right. It's pretty

amazing. The other thing that comes up for me though, Rob, is you said,

you know, he was talking to you about this trying to get your impression

as a young man, you were in your twenties. Do you think he

was thinking ahead and saying, you know, at some point,

your age group is gonna be faced with this and having to think

about these things. I don't know. I

mean, he didn't present it to me that way when we discussed it, he might

have been thinking that. I think

that was just interested to get some feedback on the ideas. And, you

know, I studied philosophy in university. So I have a sort of

philosophical mind as did he I mean, I I got a lot of it

from him. And, you know, he wanted on that

sort of level to bounce the ideas off and see if it sort of made

sense. or held together as a way of

thinking. And I'll say one other thing about the ageism, not only

was he very much ahead of his time in addressing ages, He

even coined a phrase to

isolate a particular type of ageism, which he called age

casting, He took from the idea of type casting the way you type

cast an actor and he said elderly people or seniors

are pushed into a certain role in society, which is basically the

role of a useless person. And obviously, this is completely

wrong and and evil. And so their age

casted. Once you get to a certain age, you're cast into a certain

position. And I mean, ageism in general

is terrible, and this is a specific form of it which he

identified. Yeah. He was so far

ahead of his time. It was just amazing to read all of that.

So you found this document this

manuscript in his desk in

2000. He passed away in 90

9095. He passed away 95. I think I found the document

in 2002, but I'm not exactly sure of the year. It might have

been 2003. Okay. So

what was that like to find it and and why did

you now decide to publish it? Right. Well, as you can

imagine, especially since as I explained, I had talked to him

a bunch about these ideas. So I'll set the scene for you and you

can probably, intuit my feeling when I explained this. So

as you mentioned, I'm a journalist. As I mentioned, I used to go back and

forth between Tokyo and Boston to be with my mom after

my father passed away. We had a house in Newton. Was very

comfortable. I had one room, you know, She was living alone at

this point. My brother was in California and still is in California.

and, so I used to sit at his desk and type my

you know, journalistic pieces on my computer and one day I

just pulled open his desk drawer because she had kept his study

exactly as it was when he was alive. He hadn't moved anything. So he had

hundreds of books and even papers were around

sometimes I would look at the papers, but, you know, they didn't mean that much

to me. And then I pulled open this desk drawer and there was this

big black thing. It's

not not small. I mean, he had bounded with hard,

like, cardboard cover. It was not like a little tiny book

or you know, some typed pages of manuscript. It was

a big heavy thing and I was like, what's this? And I opened it up

and, you know, it was like discovering hidden treasure. because

not only was it my father's words and his ideas and things

that I had heard about and thought were valuable, but now it was in

the context of Tuesdays with Maury, which it hadn't been

in that context before when I had ever thought about it. Right? So

immediately, it struck me as like, okay. we have an opportunity

to do something with this because it would have been hard if Tuesdays

with Moore hadn't existed. I'm not sure. that I could have gotten published.

Maybe some editor would have said this is good. Let's publish it. But you

know how the publishing world is. If you don't have a name, If you're not

known for something, anything, really, then it's really

hard. And he was now a known quantity, and I knew that we

would be able to publish it. And I should add that that is all due

to Tuesdays with Maury and my family owes Mitch album an

incredible debt of gratitude for what he did

and writing that wonderful book, which is so accessible to

everybody. And so, I mean, it's almost lyrical that book, you

know. Yeah. That book really does give you an insight into

your dad, but, in fact, I went back and read it because

when I read this book, the wisdom of Maury.

I I saw so much in there that was

positive and uplifting in a way to even if

you're in despair was his word. Even if you're feeling in

despair, you could, you know, reignite your hope.

And I thought, Did he was he a really

able to do that after he had ALS?

And as I reread the wisdom of Tuesdays with

Maury. It seemed like he was.

Sure. I mean, I think the answer to that is yes. but

it's not as easy or it wasn't as easy for him as maybe some

people, you know, imagine. Like, he was a positive guy, so he

got this you know, fatal diagnosis. And he said, that's fine. I'm gonna

be positive. No. Not at all. He struggled with it. And there's

a very powerful clip you may or may not be. I have a

feeling you will be familiar with. There's 3 programs done

by Ted Coppell on his night line news

magazine show, which was the biggest news magazine show in the nineties,

right, had called Nighteline, and they had my father on three

times because he so popular. Usually, they only did one

episode on one thing and moved on. They had that on three times and

also watched the progression of his illness. but I think

it's the 1st or second,

time they had him on. He talks about how sometimes he gets up in

the morning and he's totally morose and he has

to, like, mourn for himself and cry. but he

makes a conscious decision. Like, I am gonna be positive.

I'm gonna live the life, the fullest life that I can now and

contribute what I can now. you know, whatever the circumstances,

it's a real conscious decision and not an easy one. I mean, you

know, it's not easy for anybody. So I don't want people to

have, any illusion, illusion that he

was somehow it didn't affect him or he had this indomitable spirit that

nothing could touch. Not like that at all. It was a struggle for

him, and I think it's a struggle for everybody. 1, who have any

kind of illness and 2, in general, I mean, life is a struggle

in some ways emotionally and, you know,

even intellectually in a lot of different ways. So you know, if

you're struggling, don't think that my father didn't go through exactly the

same thing. He did. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that,

Rob. You know, I also lived with a father

who was a very positive person, and

there is a part of that that is hard to live with because you

start to feel like, well, I can't turn it off and turn it on that

quickly and that easily as he seems to be able to

do. So, have you learned some

techniques for yourself that help you to turn

on the positive Sure. And some of them are in the book. I

mean, it's funny because I've talked about this topic a lot.

And as I talk about it, I sort of noticed that my

life and a lot of the things in the book are kind of interwoven.

And that's not surprising because he was my father, and we were

very, very close. and a lot of the things that he taught me, you know,

weren't necessarily sitting down and giving a lecture, but whatever

by, you know, example or by just in

the air, you sort of pick it up and some things are maybe more

more stated. But for example, it's in the book and I also

try and emulate this. And as I said, I spent a lot of time in

Asia. I mean, I think meditation is a wonderful tool

can be totally separate from any kind of religion or

spirituality, or it doesn't have to be. It depends on you, but it can

just totally be a technique to calm your mind,

to calm your energy, to focus, and, you know,

it's it's wonderful. And I certainly practice that in my father

about it a lot in the book. And he talked about

meditation and mindfulness. Yeah. Yes. I'm

curious you are a creative person. You've

created music. You've created film. You've created,

you know, all kinds of articles. This

manuscript, which you edited, but didn't write, how were you

able to tap into your own creativity

while you were editing it. That's an interesting question. you

know, creativity is an interesting and in some ways tricky

thing. So I'll try and answer the best I can. So first of all, I

should note that I did write 2 essays. I write an essay in

the beginning of the book and the end of the book. The essay in the

beginning of the book is more about my dad. The essay at the end of

the book is more about my mom. So it's about our family. They're

both about the story of this book and how it came to be

in my participation and and so on.

about the editing in terms of my creativity, I

mean, there's a little bit here and there about

a turn of phrase or I retitled some of the

sections to try and capture what my father was

saying. But for the most part, one of the key

aspects of editing this book was maintaining my

father's voice. If you've read the book and I know you have, you'll

understand that his voice comes through so strong

and so pure in this book that that was my

number one priority was not to alter that

or, you know, filter it in any way. So,

I mean, I think that that is also a kind of creativity. Right?

creativity is an interesting thing to be able to craft something

to make it better, but to keep the essence of it. In this case,

his voice that that's a creative task in and of itself.

And we can talk specifically about the editing if you like, how I edited what

I did, but in answer to your question, I think that's how I express my

creativity for this book for any. Sure. Go on. Tell us

about the editing. Well, my father was an academic. Right? Now

this is not an academic work. This is very much an everyday

work. And in fact, it's even broader than that. It's, as

you know, works in stories and poetry

and newspaper articles, it changes and offers all of these

different things to try and reach you in different ways.

So my editing, I really had to try and make it

go smoothly. And as I said, my father was an academic, so sometimes

he tended to get a little long winded. So that was the point where I

had to step in and say, okay. You've given 3 examples of this.

We don't need 7. You know? And I'm serious. I mean, he could

be quite cold ended. You know? Okay. You've listed 6

things that people can do. We don't need 18.

Right? Well, I'm I'm barely exaggerating here.

You know, he was he was like that. He was so full of ideas

So it was a matter of cutting things out and trimming

it down. So it'd be a little bit more digestible. I think the book

is pretty digestible. but it's also pretty long. I mean, you have to,

you know, you have to sit down and and apply yourself to this

book. Right? You do. You do. And I'm I'm glad you you talked

about the ideas because I think he what I get

from a lot of it is that he really wanted to help

people by sharing some of these ideas. So if you're stuck

on, well, how do I go out and connect with people? Or if you're stuck

on Life list looks grim right now. He

gives you some very practical ideas of

things you can do. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I

wanna take this back a step and then I'll go forward with what you said.

So that's right. He did write this book specifically to try and help

people. and we talked about that in 1989

when I was talking to him. So there were three things

that he did that specifically in his

mind were to try and help people. he

the first part is about ageism as we discussed. and a

psychological analysis of how this affects

people psychologically and how you need to try to

rid yourself. I mean, you need to acknowledge it and expel

it like all of the other kind of negative attitudes

that we have, whether it's racism or sexism and stuff. This is stuff that

we learned, you know, as a as a culture,

and we try and get rid of them now because we realize that they're wrong,

you know, essentially. Right? you

can't judge somebody by their race. You can't judge somebody by their gender.

Right? That's just, you know, a plain truth in this day and age.

and you can't judge somebody by their age. So that was the first part

to address ageism as a psychological you know, the

psychological aspect of and try and get people to expunge it. So as

you know, my father was a social psychologist. That was his

background. That was his orientation. That was his initial

approach to this book. That's just the first way which he tries to help people.

The second way, as you know, is He gives

specific stories, techniques, ideas

to try and get people to be able to live more vibrantly

or more creatively or address something in their

life that is, you know, making them less happy, whether it's

despair, whether it's loneliness, he goes into very

specific things in the second half of the book. So in that way, I feel

like there's kind of two halves to the book. The first half about,

the psychological analysis in the second half is really practical

tips. And the third thing is more general, as I sort of already

noted, he uses so many different things. He drops

in stories. There's so many stories, you know, of the ninety five

year old guy who's just graduated from college and wants to

become a doctor, you know, or whatever. There's a lot of

stories like that. When he's trying to take you sort of out of the

narrative of the book or the ideas of the book and more appeal to

your imagination. That's why their stories

and poetry and newspaper articles. And, you

know, it's not his voice then. It's somebody else's story. Somebody else's

voice. So it's sort of got those 3 aspects to

it. It really is a beautiful

story. So if you had to kind of

summarize what your dad's outlook on life was, his

philosophy of life. Well, how well, how would you

describe that? Oh, you know, actually, I've done a lot of these,

and that's actually the first time I've ever been asked that.

There's a lot of different answers. I'll go with the one that

is most applicable to this book.

So my father had this incredible empathy

for other people. to be

able to feel their pain, to feel their joy,

to feel what they were feeling. And this led him

to believe since he felt so deeply what other people were

feeling that a world in which we were, you know,

unified and everybody lived in

harmony with everybody else. And, you know, we didn't have

wars or economic sparity, people starving to

death. You know, obviously, there's always gonna be disease, but that that's something else. You

know, social problems. And he wrote a lot about social

problems, in terms of the academic world, but that's something

else. he saw we could have a world

without those things. kind of, you know, somebody would call him

a idealistic world or whatever, you know, along the lines of John

Lennon in a mat the song imagine. Right? So I would say

yeah. Absolutely. So I would say that fundamentally, that

was his philosophy of life. If we could just reach

enough people and get them to understand that we're

all the same. People all over the world are the same, have the same

concerns, the same troubles, the same,

you know, a basic values, you know, everyone

loves their family, Everyone wants to live a good comfortable

life. You know, no one really wants to hurt anybody else.

if we could understand that as a society and as a world, we

could live in a much, much better world. So I think fundamentally,

that was his philosophy. And it was informed by his

personal experiences, which we can talk about. And he does

talk about in book, and he also is mentioned to Tuesdays with Maury.

So I can go into that if you want. Yeah. Please.

So that was informed by the death of his

mother. He lost his mother at eight years old, and it

was so painful for him And he felt so

much sadness that it actually took him decades

decades to fully process that and to grieve for

her. And that's what made him in his view, and I think

it's true. Sorry. So

sensitive to other people's pain and

ability to feel what they were feeling because he had

had that experience at such a young age. It also informed

his academic life and his professional life. I write

about this in my essay. his

big breakthrough in academically

and was also a huge watershed in social psychiatry

was a book called The Mental Hospital came out in 1954.

He wrote it with a very famous psychiatrist at the time Alfred Stanton, but

it was basically his research. in a psychiatric

ward. And what he found out was that

the relationships between all of the people

in the ward affected the patient, not just the

patient and doctor or patient and nurse, but, like,

if 2 doctors were having a disagreement, this would

affect the patient or if

nurses were, you know, fighting among themselves. So he

realized that all of us are interconnected and that our

feet were so sensitive to the emotions and the

energies that are around us. and this really informed his

whole life and his academic work and and his

personal life in many ways. some of which I talk about the s

in the essay, and I can talk about now if you like. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No. It I forgot about the story about his mother.

Yeah. And he Yeah. It did take him a while to process

that. So what -- Yeah. What was he like as a

father? it's funny because

there's really 2 ways for me to answer this. I mean,

when you're a kid, you never think, like, oh, my

father's perfect or, you know, doing everything right. You

never think that. Even, you know, you love your father and love him deeply

and you look up to him, and he's your role model. But you always

think like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about or whatever. So

I, of course, I was the same as a child. In retrospect, of course,

you feel about it very differently, but I do have to say. I mean, he

was a pretty wonderful father. You know, he

he didn't have any of those what

shall we call them? faults that we hear about other

fathers. He was very emotionally accessible. He spent a lot

of time with me. He never or rarely

got, you know, angry or for no reason. He was not

abusive. You know, obviously, the idea of physical

punishment was completely, you

know, foreign to him. I mean, there might have been a few times when

He was, you know, when I was little and my brother was little when he

might have sort of, like, alluded to the fact that there was

a possibility that something might happen to us if we

kept behaving badly. We would never ever have laid

a finger on us. That was just so foreign to him. that

idea that you would, you know, hit your child or something like that.

So he was a pretty pretty amazing father. I mean, I can't

really find a fault with him. He spent a lot of time with

us. He was very involved with our lives. He loved

having children He talks about that in Tuesdays with Maury, and

he talks about it a little bit in this book. He there's a section on

family in Tuesdays with Maury where he talks about it. and, you know, he

says it's the most wonderful thing in the world. So, yeah, he

was a pretty spectacular father.

I bet it was. So you mentioned,

that you don't feel like a boomer, although you are. You're right on the

cutting edge of it. I mean, depends. I'll talk to you about that. I'm gonna

cut you off because, there's this guy that came up with

this concept of people born. I think he

he cuts it off at about 1958 or

57 to 64. and he says these

people are not Boomers. I can't remember the author's name, but he calls them the

Jones generation. really separates it.

So, you know, this is a cultural trope. Oh, we have this

generation. We have that generation. The greatest generation

Boomers generation X, but I'm kind of born

on the border of generation X. The guy that

who wrote the book called Generation X is is born

right around the same time as me. And, yeah, I mean, I never felt

like, you know, I was part of the sixties or anything like that.

When I was in high school, we felt like the sixties were ancient

history. Now, of course, they were only like 8 years before, but

when you're a teenager, something 8 years before is ancient

history. You know, we listen to course, we listened to some

music that was the sixties and we listened to music that was influenced by the

sixties, but we also listened to, like, punk, and

NewWave, which was a reaction against the sixties, right, or in

whole psychedelic sixties music. You know? You're too bad. Yeah.

You missed all the good music, but now -- You know, there's a difference

if we're, like, 9 years or -- Right. You are now

protesting the war and all of that. good stuff.

But my -- Yeah. But I've never pro stent has protested the war. That was

history for me. Yeah. Oh, well, those were the good old days.

But I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying I don't

personally feel like a boomer. I know people who are similar to my

age who do feel like boomers, And I was a little surprised when they told

me, oh, yeah. When I was 12, I was wearing bell bottoms. It's like,

I was not wearing bell bottoms when I was 12.

So, you know, everyone's -- Well, but here's here's really where

I was going with that question. Okay. So you're you're

60. Right? A little older than that, but yeah. A little

older than that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So as your dad is in this book and

you've worked on this book and now you're speaking about the book, The Wisdom of

Morey and the about so much of it is about ageism and

and making peace with where we are and, you know,

accepting regrets

and and learning from our past and all of this. How has

that had an impact on you as you start to look

at Oh, 70, 80. That's not that far

off now. Right. Right. Right. Well, I

mean, I don't know if replicating

my father's experience or, you know,

approach to it, but I never felt old

I never felt even like I was aging. you work in

music. There's a lot of young people. You work in film. You work

creatively. there's people younger than you.

And, I'm starting to feel

just like my dad, maybe it happened to him at 70.

like, oh, maybe I am, you know, aging a

little bit. So I'm just coming in to that,

that whatever attitude or understanding or

mindset where, you know, maybe some of these things apply to

me. I don't feel like I'm aging yet, but I'm

certainly getting close to it. And yeah, you need to think about,

like, how am I gonna approach this? What am I gonna do?

And I think one of the major things, which my father talks about a

little bit in this book, but not that much. is, you know, you need to

keep in good physical shape. I mean, that's something that we've learned, I think,

is really emphasized now or in the last

15 years and wasn't emphasized so much like 40

years ago or 30 years ago, you know, when my father was

was aging though. He was very active. He was always

walking and he swam regularly, but you really need

to do physical activity. This is going to extend your life. I mean,

this is proven. This is going to extend your life. Like, you need to

walk or swim or go to the gym or do some

physical activity almost every day, certainly every

week. and this is gonna what's gonna keep you active and energetic.

And, you know, that's something I'm trying to, integrate

into my life because, obviously, a journalist. I'm used to sitting in

my computer writing or, you know, whatever. So

Right. Right. Well, I I mean, I think as your dad said in

the book. You know, we we aging is a

privilege. Right? If we get to that stage where

we're now gonna look at the next horizon. It's a

privilege because not everybody gets there. So -- Right. Well,

you'll you'll love a joke that my father used to tell.

He would say, yeah, getting old is not great, but it beats

the alternative. Meet the alternative. That's right.

It's only one other alternative. That's right. That's right.

So we have a question here. What do you think hit, your dad's take would

be on social media and all the good and the bad that comes with

that? Right. Well, that's the the last part of that question that hits the nail

on the head. Good and bad. I think he would see the good and the

bad. I mean, social media when you really think about it is incredibly

paradoxical, right, or ironic because we

are so connected now to

anybody in the world. I, one of my best friends who, became

a very good friend of mine. When we both lived in Japan, we actually ran

company together. He is an Instagram influencer. He

travels around the world, and I am in constant touch with

him. you know, more than daily touch with him,

via one of the text apps, you know, and he's constantly

in Dubai or Egypt or

the South Pacific. I think currently he's in India, you

know, so we're in we can be in incredibly connected to

people through social media, yet the

overall effect of it is to make us much more isolated.

from people than we were before. We're constantly staring at our

phones. We're not focused on what's in right in front of us. We don't

relate to the people around us we don't stop and have

random conversations with people the way we used to because

we're just like looking at our phone, you know, and

not aware of what's around us. so

it's a paradox. And my father would say it's great to be

more connected but maybe sometime be

aware of your surroundings, maybe interact with the people in

your immediate surroundings. I have to say it's something that I

do. And, you know, some people, lots of people

relate to it well. Some people don't. but I'll strike up random

conversations with people around me just because I love

to talk to people, you know, and I know what they're about. and

some people are receptive and some people are not. And that's fine. But

to answer the question, I think he would be critical of people

were constantly focused on their phone. It's fine to do that

sometimes and it's wonderful to be in touch with people all around the world but

also focus on your immediate surroundings, the people

around you, and maybe try and make a connection with them. I I love

that. And I do the same thing, Rob. I talk to people in the grocery

store, and I stop. I can believe that. Having talked to you

a few times. I know Robin are your

best buddies now. so here's another great

question, though, because you lived this. Okay? So what

advice might you offer to children of aging parents

when they're ill? How to be best supportive

and and offer them support and encouragement.

Right. This is a complex question, actually. So I'm gonna approach

it from two different ways. So the

first way is, obviously, you wanna be as

supportive as you as you can but you need to be

supportive in the way that they want you to be

supportive. You need to talk to them and say, what can

I do? What should I not do? What makes you

uncomfortable? And maybe some people will be

uncomfortable with attention being showered on them or

somebody doting on them or, you know, always

hovering over them. Are you okay? you know, can I do something for you? A

lot of people are not comfortable with that. So you need to talk to them

and find out what they're comfortable with and find the ways

that you can help them and support them in ways that fit

that they're comfortable with. So that's the first part of the answer. The second

part of the answer is a more personal one, but I also think it works

for everybody, maybe on different levels, which is that when an

aging parent is ill, you have to realize that

they're probably not gonna be around. They're certainly not gonna be around forever,

and they're probably not gonna be around for that much longer. So you

really have to make the time to, you know, relate to

them, talk to them, figure out ways to share. Some people

are not as verbal as other people figure out ways to share things.

And, again, you have to be strategic about it. You can't

impose what you want. on the person. You have to find

the meeting point where it's comfortable for both of you. And

a side note on something that I did that

is been incredibly, like, meaningful to me.

And maybe in the future will be to other people is

that for my father and, of course, my dad was incredibly

verbal and he was meeting all sorts of people and you know,

that's captured in Tuesdays with Maury. He was having discussion groups and he was

having friends over. So I set up a video camera.

in his study. And I have hours and hours of

videotape of him, just, you know, random

days where he was talking to people And of

course, you know, he was already ill. So we knew that he wasn't gonna be

around forever, but just watching the videotape you know,

makes me feel so close to him. Now not maybe

not everybody will be comfortable with a video camera being set up, but you can

ask you can find out. And,

you know, it's been incredibly valuable. I should note that I

actually shared those tape with Mitch and some of Tuesdays with Maury

is based on the videotape that I shot

that Mitch incorporated into the book. So, you know, it's paid

dividends thousands of times over in terms of, you know,

emotional impact for me and also for people in the

world, which is an incredible thing. And that's all thanks to the glitch. Yeah.

That's beautiful. The wisdom of Rob. Oh, wow.

So the wisdom of Maury is the book that Maury Schwartz

wrote before he got ALS before Mitch

albums Tuesdays with Maury. And Rob

has given us this gift by editing this book and

and making it possible for all of us to learn from Maury,

which is truly I'm so grateful that you did

this, Rob, and that you came on the show. I just wanna ask if

there's like 1 or 2 takeaways.

It's hard because there's so much in this book, but there's 1 or 2 takeaways

that you feel like are the most impactful that you wanna leave with our audience

today. Right. Alright. So as we mentioned

earlier, my father says lots of techniques. He offers lots of

specific techniques to try and maybe make your life more

vibrant or more creative. And, of course, some of them will

speak to you and some of them won't. So I may say ones and it'd

be meaningless to you or it may be meaningful, but my father

fundamentally felt what gives your life

meaning is your relationship with other people. You know, he said

many times, like, at the end of your life, when you're on your deathbed,

the size of your bank account is not gonna matter at all,

but the times that you shared with the people who are meaningful

for you is gonna be extremely important. So,

obviously, share as much as you can with the

people who are most meaningful for you And the

extension of that is that you

can create new relationships. You can go out and meet new people

assuming, you know, You're relatively healthy in your aging state.

You have time. You can and this is hard for a lot of people or

not comfortable for a lot of people to reach out and talk to people. They

don't know. But one way to achieve that, and my father talks

about this in the book is to figure out what you're interested

in and pursue that interest. And then you can meet

other people who are interested in the same thing, and that's an easy

way to connect with people and form new relationships about

your shared interest. And then, of course, it can take off from there where

you learn more about each other and hopefully end up, you know,

caring about each other. Right. Rob, thank you

so much. let me tell people how they can

find out more There is a website, wisdomofmori.com

that you can check out and find out more. And Rob also

graciously Lee is sharing his email address with us, which

is gangamati@yahoo.com.

And just as a little aside, if you have a little independent bookstore

near you that you think would be a good place for Rob to come speak,

drop him an email and let him know about that. Absolutely. Can I add one

thing? usually, I hope people read the book and

enjoy the book. and get something from it. And if you do that,

it would really appreciate it if you leave a review

on Amazon, or on good reads

or on Barnes And Noble's or any site. Those are probably

the 3 that popped to mind, especially Amazon, but it's so

important to get reviews out there to let people

know what's going on because as you mentioned, social media is

such a huge part of our life. And as you well know, what drives social

media algorithms? And how do the algorithms work? the more

there is, the more there is. That's the way algorithms

work. The larger it is already, the bigger the more people it

exposes it to. So -- Right. -- are really, really

important. And I'm gonna follow on to that about reviews to

say that if you like what you're hearing on, hey, Boomer, I wanna hear from

you too. So I would love for you to leave

reviews on Apple or Spotify or drop me an email.

atwendy@heyboomer.biz. And I just wanna share

this message I got from Josephine a couple of weeks ago. And

she said, I loved hearing Philip Martin with his

enthusiasm and wonderful view of life and lessons learned from

his dogs. I think what he is doing and has done is

so inspiring Philip is right that kids are more

ease will more easily learn from pet than from an adult.

Thanks, Josephine, for what you, took the time to

share with me. I really do appreciate hearing that what

we're doing on this Hey Boomer show makes a difference to you.

I also wanted to say that I created a listener survey

because again, I wanna hear what you're saying and what you're thinking.

I'm gonna post this in the show notes I'm

also you can see the link here, but I will post it,

on the website so that you can give me your

feedback and to incentivize you.

gonna do a random drawing, of

everybody who participates in the survey. I'm gonna do a random drawing for

$50 Amazon gift cards. So you can use that to buy the

wisdom of Maury. Yay.

next Monday. Next Monday, I will have landed in Denver,

Colorado, and I'll be getting immersed in all things podcast.

because I will be at the podcast Movement Convention, which is

the largest podcast convention in the United States.

I'm I'm excited and nervous. I am signed up to record

a podcast there. So I will be releasing

that, but that's be cool because it's gonna be like a real studio

with real editors and all of that. so I'll

release that when I get back, but, you know, there's an extensive

catalog of Hey Boomer shows that you can watch

while I am not on the air for the next 2 weeks.

and I'd like to leave you with the belief that we can

all live with courage, live with relevance,

and live with curiosity. And remember that we are

never too old to set another goal or dream a

new dream. Thanks again, Rob. Thank you.