 Dr. Larry Graham, thank you for joining us here at the Hey, Think Tech Hawaii's wonderful program. Don't just age engage and that's my personal program for you all in which I explore the issues of aging, mostly from the internal point of view. What are you doing that is the best practice for you in aging in this community and in this culture. Today we are going to explore one of those people we're going to ask about that from one person that they're very good friend of mine named Philip McManus available join us in just a bit. But what I'm doing is saying that it's the most important for us to look at models that we can claim opportunity that present us with opportunities to grow and to function in ways we want to. We are excellent as Western civilization at studying the problem. We study problems until we don't know what we're looking at sometimes but what we what I like to do is to study solutions, study examples of people who are in fact aging in such a way that their life is what they would call full and wonderful. And that we would look at and say, that is pretty extraordinary. Philip McManus. Welcome to my program. Thank you so much my friend for joining me here today and and sharing some of your story with us. And I've always said that the most important thing we can do is tell our story, and you do such a beautiful job Philip would you just do an introduction for our viewers. Well, thank you for having me as they say in Nepal. Namaste. I've known Larry since we were in high school, and we ended up in Hawaii together back and forth. I've been crawling quite a bit. I've been in music since college which let me travel all over the place. And then I got involved in video over the last 10 years or so and started chronicling what I was doing. And that's basically the place I came from music is a great way to meet people because it goes right to the heart, and they forget that you're watching them too. So what kind of music do you like the most what do you, what is the music that is your music. My father was a pipe organ builder and concert organist is some repeat so I was in piano and cello and voice up through college and picked up guitar 19. And that became my money making instrument, but also my most passionate instrument, although I still play the cello. I've been playing the cello because I haven't played her about 35 years. So when you're putting your finger down on the, on the fingerboard it's wherever your finger is with the note is so you're constantly making and creating a new note every time you put your finger down as opposed to a piano key so I would call it an approximation, a very humbling experience, because you're never tuned but it sure feels good and it's not a question of arrival is a question of being somewhere around kind of how it works. So I would say I love cello I'm playing classical music but my own music and and guitar I can't tell you what it is but I have these beautiful guitars I've acquired over the years that seduce me constantly to play them. Well it sounds like a good description for what I would say is the aging process. You can't really don't know what you're going to get to it's maybe not going to be the exact note, but you're in the process of getting to it. Well there is, yeah there is no exact note I guess it's all an approximation and a quest, or not even a quest, just a discovery. There is no rival there's a wonderful quote that goes when you seek outcomes you get consequences. It doesn't work out the way you always want. And as to the viewers I want to say that Philip has made some tremendous. I think accomplishments in his elderhood. He not only enjoys the music he produces, but he also has some achievements that he's made. And I'd like to get to those and a little bit will share a little bit of video of what he's done, where he's been over the past few years. And the encouragement that he brings I think to anyone who knows him. He has been an inspiration for me. I am here in Hawaii because he invited me to come. And it was his adventurous spirit that helped to turn me into an adventure myself. And I hope that you've confined in this few minutes some of that same electricity about his, his life and his adventuresome spirit. But tell me Philip tell the viewers if you will what do you think is the most important thing to hold on to for what has been the strongest motivator or or enabling factor for you in your elder years now to have such a fulfillment such a strong and adventures in life. Well I never considered myself to be an aid, not having had children. You don't get to measure yourself in the age and the aging of your own children. First, so it would be elder good to me has been more a matter of change, things changing in me and recognizing it, but I didn't associate it with anything in particular. So it's a matter of how do I, I'll never play volleyball again really I'll never run again, but I did a lot of that for years but realizing that my passions in many ways not just in volleyball or running or something physical but other things that I can do. Just shift that passion off to something else it's not a question of, of my favorite uncle was a Baptist minister. Uncle Theron died first your gut fully of my half dozen Baptist minister, uncles I had from my mother's sisters. And on his deathbed, we were all standing around the family around his, his deathbed I being a half generation younger than my siblings, second litter. Listen to the stories I've never heard and then in a pause, Theron Uncle Theron said in a small voice, I think my life is just a collection of my loves. I am what I love and I was 19 and you're always kind of looking for yourself at that age if you're lucky. And that moment I found myself I am what I love. The essence was not what I love that I love the act of loving keeps you supple keeps you wiggling. My father died at 91 and he says age affects only those who are not children. And to be a child you have to be curious, and to be to allow yourself to be curious. We are taught so many things in life, like what's going to happen, you know I don't know what's going to happen, as if something bad can happen, you know, and then you have to define the word bad and good. Yeah, which is worth discussing at some point. Yeah. Well thank you for that those are inspiring words, and I would like to highlight for the audience that as a personal coach for life and faith and personal coach for your childhood, I want to coach people into extraordinary elder hoods. And but I can see this phase of life as being a indeed a stage, and you had your childhood, you had your adolescence, you had your adulthood. You have your elder hood. And when we look at elder hood as a, or aging as a stage of life. It simply has its own unique characteristics, which each of us has to explore and and discover ourselves we once again ask the question, who am I, who am I at this stage of life, and the answers that we come up with our own world guide us in the decisions that we make. So, having a certain excitement about that having a discovery and having a confidence in what you discover, I think is very important. And Philip embodies that in so many ways that confidence that whatever comes comes and he'll make it through. And physical issues, physical occurrences problems, don't need to enumerate them but what has helped you be so resilient, dealing with these physical problems. I think, first of all, accepting the fact that I'm, they say that life is essentially transmitted disease with the fatal prognosis. Since I have accepted the fact that I'm riding on a on a mortal body that's slowly falling apart and accept that to be part of the game. Then it's no longer an issue. It's also a question of not having things have to work out in a certain way for me to be happy. I was hiking around in the T roll with my friend Stephanie when I started feeling really, really bad and I said man these pills I'm taking from my blood pressure really are making it difficult to move around turned out I was having a heart attack. But in the course of it. I first of all I didn't get to eat my, my goulash and wonderful salad that was served to me really irritated me but I made it to the hospital and that the most interesting people. And I got to watch and do the, the stint at my arm and, but so it really had nothing to do with anything because that was another amazing experience and happily I got in travelers insurance two days previously so who helped for some of it anyway. So I hear two things right now fill up and one is not to expect outcomes and to conform to what you want, but to be resilient with whatever comes, and then the other to be confident in what what what you can manage that you whatever comes you're going to you're going to deal with it in some ways that am I hearing you correctly. To you to a point, but the point being there was nothing to deal with this. I'm not the. I'm not what happens and what I'm watching what happens but I am not what happens I'm the watcher. This is oh look what looks going into operation right now. It's me. I mean it's, it's, it's carrying me around like I'm watching HBO or Netflix, you know, it's my life I'm watching, but it didn't. Yeah, yeah, that makes any sense at all maybe I was in they call too long and part of the game you said is, is that this this body does change. Does have its own decline. We would call it decline or it's, I'd like to think of it as check transformations and and transitions. Okay, okay, go ahead. We were speaking earlier about that about when you're young. You start gaining new talents and experiences and strength that you didn't even miss because you never knew it could have them but then as you grow older. You start losing these things but then again you have other talents and skills that are infinitely more developed than when you were a child. So to let the things go that aren't relevant anymore and really focus on what I'm into and able to be. Yes, yes. And what he has been into my friends is pretty phenomenal itself. One of the things that I can report to you that he did was to organize a canal trip to well a couple of canal trips in in France. Tell us about the canal trip the one that we're going to view we're going to view some of this video of this. This was on the canal to me be which is a canal that was built in the late 1700s early 1800s to connect the Atlantic with Mediterranean, avoiding having to go around around Spain, the Iberian Peninsula to get from one place to another. I had owned the river boat in Hamburg 100 foot long 1922 river boat that I just stumbled across or splashed across back in 2000 and had it for several years and learned how to really manage a flat bottom boat so I hired a ship and had two ships actually and had my friend Stephanie captain one and I kept on the other and for two weeks we navigated this canal, which has bicycle paths on the sides and it only went like 130 miles and two weeks so, but it's just such a rich environment which maybe the video might show you and I had a drone that I've really been enjoying that I did some video in any case that was the trip I had eight women with me between 21 and 80, and I would not recommend that. But the loan mail but we had a good time. We're going to look at the video in just a minute a couple of minute video but you have another trip coming up that you're going to go into. Yeah, I think I do repeat for those of us who've gotten our second shots in September. Hopefully France will be back open if not we will just delay it get our money back and go later. But do it again because there are things I didn't get to see now that I know more about it. I don't know what you're going to have in my, my stuff below but have lots of videos from this on my YouTube channel on your YouTube channel. Okay, well and well let's go to the, to the, to the video. We're going to be able to do that kind of a trip in our elderhood, but one of the things that I'm most amazed at Phillip is that you took something that's been a part of you for many years and, and just three years ago, three years ago I think it was just created this event and this opportunity for people. It was that I mentioned that he's adventuresome. I can tell you that I had just had Nick surgery the week before from having been hit by a car in Chinatown and not a little, but that was, I was fine. And also the two of the women who are in that are gone now they died. And they were, you know, 79 and 81. So, so they were living their elderhood they did it. Oh man I can barely walk. But they were fine. I mean they were, they drank more than I did. But take advantage of it because one never knows what their time schedules are. Yeah, especially with that you're sitting most of the time and you're getting a tour you don't have to pack up and go to a hotel you're where you're traveling is where you're staying you know your motor transportation. Now along the canal you disembarked into various villages and while you were in the villages did you learn anything or did you learn I like Beaujolais more than I learned that there's a natural support to life and you don't have to know why the water supports you just have to know that it does, you know, wonderful, wonderful. Well and everybody learned as they went they were still growing they were still coming to new understandings and actually they a lot of issues came up that you know when you're living your what you love you also uncover things that you haven't dealt with. But because we were in a group. It was talked about you know you can only be polite for three days I think and we're together for 14. Lots of things changing so there were some people acting out but they took care of them, you know, and everybody was delighted by the end of the trip so that's wonderful. But that itself is such a learning experience in my opinion, being able to grow from self revelation and self understanding. And sometimes getting outside of our comfort zones and being dislocated into another place can be the opportunity to have that growth experience. I think they were fortunate, fortunate to have you along and sensitive to that dynamic. So we go from there to another amazing adventure. Now this adventure is a bigger part of your past. Tell us something about this would you. Well, I have, when I first went to Europe I, I have a private club that I've had, making it practical to have fun. And I first went to Europe meeting a woman online 24 years ago and we had a food stand in the town square of Humber. We're selling lobster and champagne everybody else is selling bratwurst and beer and pretzels. And it was kind of like a fishing expedition to meet interesting people and I met a guy who was doing expeditions with mayor submarines these mini submarines that go down six kilometers in under the sea. And this was right after the Soviet Union had come apart, pretty much, and these guys are having a difficult time so he hired the ships to do interesting tours and he was doing the Bismarck. I mean doing the Titanic with the submarines charging 35,000 and I said, Oh, hey, Mike, can I sell some of these trips on the internet the new internet he said sure I sold a bunch, not a nice commission. And he said where should we go next till I've been in the military European military history for years I said how about the Bismarck I know it's been just discovered. And he said sure why don't you come. Really. So we he organized everything. And I came along. And we had been the Bismarck of it discovered by Robert Ballard but never explored. He had a camera on the string to see if we went down with these two mirror submarine with the big lights and it was three hours down three hours up eight hours on the bottom on a two meter space with three of us inside this titanium ball flying around, we got stuck underneath propellers and the back. The other sub had to come tell us how to back out properly. It was very wonderfully exciting. Philip, we, we, there's going to be a question after this video, and then I want to turn to thank you for that. I'm thankful for the viewer for asking a question. We'll get to it after this video but in this video, Philip also has is reciting a poem that he wrote that he having been moved by this experience right Philip. Right. Let's go directly to the video then now Melissa thanks. Three miles to the ocean floor aliens from a different orb to a world beyond mortal cycles untouched by waves winds or storms nights or days seasons nations lives or generations to a quiet place whose darkness has remained untempered by sun moon or stars. The darkness that has prevailed long before earth the life had remembered itself. We have found a lost prop from a long close play and with it the final scene from that lost director's cut. I am a member of the last undeserving audience of a few souls with thousands once had attended some 60 years ago. The giant sunken ship again seen by mortals who briefly give her back her name and her story is no longer just a strangely shaped stone among many or a garden for delicate anemones. But for a few hours becomes the silent echo of past dreams and glory terror fire destruction and despair all projected on to her through 17 centimeter thick portals. Our alien lights briefly materialize a tapestry of rusticles and flowering creatures rivaling the beauty of Buddha's sin and dollars which fade again into timeless darkness as we turn away. All my life I've known the story of the Bismarck in her final days imagining her fine and proud as if she had never died. But that image has been ruined as I see her broken in her open coffin just as after seeing my mother cold and dead it took me years to remember her any other way. For me the memory of the Bismarck shall be the same so much for glory and for fame a hero's death both slayer and the slain. Now the spirit lies not on the ship but with the men who sailed her once former foes and worked together to write this final chapter. It is my honor to admit them we have made these memories treasure. The men who sailed them oh my gosh that really that got me in my throat. It gets me all the time. And that boot that single boot was very moving to me to see that. That's a profound experience and one that you hope to replicate or repeat. We can if we had the people that wanted to do it I know the folks to do it. Made friends with a lot of Russians for some reason I've been hanging around Russians for years. I hired a three hundred and fifteen foot tall ship for six weeks in the eastern Caribbean 20 years ago all sorts of stuff. So they're Russian run. Yeah, we can wait. Would we address direct people to oceanographic.com actually my email would be good the best way to go. Okay, check it out with his email. We do have one question from a viewer which I'd love to have you respond to please. And that is how to pick a destination for an adventurous trip like the one you describe. How did you hear of such a destination and then what did you consider as you were deciding that it would be your next destination, but were your considerations for that choice. French trip. I knew the canal I had gone the year before in Burgundy. The canal guy I knew the canal the media existed, but didn't think in terms of hiring a boat and putting my friends on board with me. So it's sort of what's your heart's desire what's on the periphery. What's what's saying oh you're saying oh I can't possibly do that but it's very attractive like the beautiful woman across the dance floor. You can go over and walk to her and say would you like to dance that we're still say no, but you can always investigate. That's important. What makes you crazy what sounds good and see if it's possible. Sometimes it isn't but it's amazing, much more as possible. That is spectacular and I am so grateful that you've been on on my show here and able to really share part of yourself and part of your, along with your interests. Thank you very much for those questions viewer and we will I hope we answered for you if not, please connect with Phillips email at. I'd be delighted. Yeah, I'd be delighted. I stepped on you sorry. And so every two weeks, we have don't just age, engage to encourage you to have the most extraordinary elder hood you possibly can make it me. Thank you to think tech Hawaii for their wonderful support for their wonderful encouragement. Thank you to Philip McManus for joining with me, and we look forward to seeing you back here in two weeks. Blessings.