90-Year-Old Golfer Lectures USC Davis School of Gerontology on "Life Begins at 90"
"My own longevity and that of others I know emits from [a love affair] with life. The vast majority of people wake up somehow determined to get through the day. This is not a stimulating prospect. I believe the way to get out of bed is with a leap and to hold the conviction that each day is going to be the greatest day of my life."
(California)—Sidney Harman, founder and former CEO of audio-equipment giant Harman International Industries and the first Judge Widney Professor of Business at USC, recently presented a special lecture at the USC Davis School of Gerontology.
Filled with one-liners, Harman's discussion, aptly titled "Life Begins at 90," delved into the importance of reading fine literature and the process of writing as an introspective exercise. He also emphasized the zeal with which one should approach waking up in the morning and offered some handy tips to living a long, healthy life.
At 90, he said, he still plays 18 holes of golf, sometimes 23, and travels every other week between Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. He attributed his active lifestyle as a nonagenarian to his mother, whom he believes "was taken prematurely at 98." He credited the rest of his well-being to a fitness regimen that he has maintained for the past 50 years without missing a day.
Without the use of cue cards, notes or prompts of any kind, he rattled off quotes from Albert Einstein, Shakespeare and Robert Frost. On the human mind, he quipped, "It's an astonishing instrument. It turns on when we wake up in the morning and doesn't turn off until we get to work."
On reading: "It's the juice of a long and vivid life."
On writing: "It enables the process of self discovery. I read to learn, I write to discover what I know."
On the golf swing: "It reduces complexity to something sublime." The discipline it takes to master the technique of the golf swing, he noted, can be useful in architecture, journalism and business.
He recalled his visits throughout the university to encourage students in medicine, engineering, arts, sciences, business, public policy and cinematic arts to take up the sport at a young age so that it will reward them into their 60s, 70s, 80s and even their 90s. His forthcoming book, which he plans to title, Geezer Golf, will play off of the many metaphors the game provides for life.
"My own longevity and that of others I know emits from [a love affair] with life. The vast majority of people wake up somehow determined to get through the day. This is not a stimulating prospect. I believe the way to get out of bed is with a leap and to hold the conviction that each day is going to be the greatest day of my life."
