Join Us on the Nourish to Flourish Road Trip on Saturday, August 29th!

You are invited to join Sue and Lou (two wise old owls) for a journey of self-discovery on the Nourish to Flourish road trip. At each of the six stops on the trip Sue and Lou will introduce you to an aspect of healthful aging, show you how to take part in the interactive exercises, and suggest ways you can apply what you learn to your daily life.

The road trip will take place on Saturday, August 29th. at 9:00 AM (PST) in the virtual world of Second Life. But you don’t have to be an avatar to join the fun. Register for and sign in to the live Webinar being hosted on ZOOM. There you will be able to see, hear, and take part in the discussions going on in Second Life and between participants in ZOOM.

Registration is fast and easy. Just visit this link: visit https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/kFOkkrthQiq5iPGxSHMQyw#/registration

We can’t wait to see you there!

Lynne Berrett

Copyright 2026 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

The term “MOOC” stands for Massive Open Online Course. Essentially, a MOOC is an online course that is open to anyone who wants to enroll.

TITLE: The Nourish to Flourish Road Trip

PRESENTER: Lynne Berrett, Co-founder of the Ageless Mind Project (AMP) and Whole Brain Health (WBH)

GUIDES: Sue and Lou, two wise and wily old owls

WHEN: Saturday, August 29, 2026

TIME:

• 9:00 AM SLT (Pacific Standard Time)

• 10:00 AM Mountain Time

• 11:00 AM Central Time

• 12:00 (Noon) (Eastern Standard Time)

• To check European times see: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time/to/united_states-europe/

• To check Australian times see: https://24timezones.com/difference/us/australia
  NOTE: Australia is always ahead of the United States

WHERE

• Inworld in the virtual world of Second Life.
  NOTE: An avatar is required to take part inworld.
  or

• ZOOM
  NOTE: Registration is required for the ZOOM session. To register, visit https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/kFOkkrthQiq5iPGxSHMQyw#/registration

DESCRIPTION
We'll take an immersive road trip with guides Sue and Lou, Whole Brain Health's wise old owls, to 6 locations on Inspiration Island and Bay.

Nourish to Flourish is the first of many road trips we're creating to offer lifelong learners evidence-based ways they can increase their wellbeing in and out of Second Life.

Our two wise owl guides will use stories, humor, and science to make the road trip engaging and fun. They will encourage “roadies” (participants) to interact with the many creative elements available at each stop, then ask them to reflect on their experiences. The name of this trip, "Nourish to Flourish," perfectly expresses its purpose. You will nourish your body, mind, and spirit while discovering new ways to flourish in your daily life.

Choosing and consistently taking part in activities that fit your personality and lifestyle helps ensure that they become beneficial habits. We think you'll enjoy spending time with us. Start here: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inspiration%20Island/86/88/23

HOW TO ATTEND

• Inworld
  Join us in Second Life by logging in as an avatar and using the SLURL below:

  https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inspiration%20Island/86/88/23

• ZOOM
  Join us via ZOOM where you’ll be able to follow our avatars as we take the tour. NOTE: You must register to attend the ZOOM tour. Use the link below to sign up:

  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/kFOkkrthQiq5iPGxSHMQyw#/registration

QUESTIONS?
Email Lynne Berrett: AgelessMindProjejct@gmail.com
or
Contact Lissena Wisdomseeker in Second Life

Copyright 2026 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

One of the things I’ve been discovering as I get older and older – I turned 88 this summer - is how very personal that experience is for each of us.

As an experiment – you know how I love experiments that reveal something I didn't know about myself – I joined a Facebook group this summer for women over 80. I was curious about the number of women over 80 who use social media or any form of technology, really.

It’s a bigger group than I would have predicted. Most of us are Americans, some of us are over 90. The themes that come up are what you’d expect – loss, loneliness, body image, illness, but also new beginnings: many women starting to write books or starting new romantic relationships.

What sustains a lot of the members is religion – or perhaps it’s more accurate to say actively belonging to a church - and family.

As I read posts and contribute some comments, I think about my focus on Character Strengths. I try guessing which Character Strengths different posts exhibit. Every post gets many “Likes” and many get a lot of “Comments,” especially when someone asks for advice about health or family issues. It’s comic to read the amount of conflicting advice a question can produce.

Women are curious about each other. Canny too. We read each other’s profiles to see if it’s actually a woman who is posting. Many members post photos of themselves to the group, some honest, some clearly enhanced. Vanity dies hard!

What I’ve learned so far from this experiment is that the Virtue of Courage stands out, although most wouldn’t see themselves as brave. Optimism is there too, especially in the belief that women can and will help each other. In fact, more than Wisdom – which we tend to ascribe to the old – I see the Virtue of Transcendence displayed most: the Strengths of Spirituality, Hope, Humor, Love of Beauty, and Gratitude are expressed most often.

That’s probably natural, given where we are in life. I wonder if recognizing, naming, and intentionally using our Strengths would help many of us deal better with the losses we are all incurring as we move toward our end? It’s one of the reasons I’ve created my own experiments. The jury is still out, but the discovery process is illuminating.

Lynne Berrett

Copyright 2026 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

When I decided to propose character strengths as a useful tool for cultivating an ageless mind, I thought it would be a relatively simple way to share a framework that has helped me increase my own wellbeing, especially as I grow older.

Simple? I should have known better.

When I wrote about the strength of HOPE, I discovered that, although the validated Character Strengths surveys have been helpful, reflections on my actual lived experience revealed something much more nuanced. (Here is the link to read that previous post.) Perhaps a formal assessment or survey is not the most useful way to start exploring strengths.

In fact, I began to wonder whether our most obvious strengths might, in fact, lock us into a view of ourselves that feels good -- we are used to thinking of them as pillars of our identity -- but they actually diminish our ability to see ourselves fully. If I hadn’t started this project, for example, I wouldn’t have realized how much my actions express the strength of HOPE, how big a part it plays in my daily life. This has given me a new view of myself that’s a bit startling.

As a result, I have begun to visualize Character Strengths not as a top-down list from strongest to weakest, but as an interconnected web of possibilities. I am wondering how much I draw on them unconsciously and how much they are working together without my necessarily recognizing their synergy.

What wonderful mysteries we are to ourselves!

Sometimes when I begin a project, I think I see it clearly, Then, new information and thoughts make me stop and reconsider. So, while I apologize for my longer-than-planned silence since the post on HOPE, I am excited to explore these intuitions and invite you to come along.

This swerve hasn’t come totally out of the blue. Recently the number 6 has been calling to me. I’m not a believer in numerology BUT when I read: “AARP Helps You Build a Healthy Brain: 6 habits you can follow every day,” I suddenly remembered their excellent Staying Sharp Program built on the “6 pillars of brain health.”

1. Eat a healthy diet

2. Exercise regularly

3. Manage stress

4. Sleep well

5. Socialize

6. Keep learning

Even more interesting is research recently published in the journal Nature Mental Health Today with the somewhat daunting title: “Towards a Taxonomy of Positive Mental Health: A Delphi Consensus Study.”

Surveying thousands of studies that measure mental health wellbeing, the authors identify 6 common factors that 90% of the studies agree on, which they call the “6 pillars of mental wellbeing.”

1. a sense of meaning and purpose (life is worthwhile and goal-directed)

2. high life satisfaction (subjective feeling)

3, self-acceptance (positive and nonjudgmental)

4. connection (close, caring relationships)

5. autonomy (feeling in control of choices and self-expression)

6. happiness (a generally positive mood)

Other factors contribute to wellbeing, but the authors contend that these 6 are the most universal, the base.

Josh reminds me that 6 is also a magic number in music: think Bach’s 6 Brandenburg Concertos. Not to mention the 6 days of Creation. You see where this can lead!

I have never particularly liked the idea of pillars, although I understand the reason for that concept. Let’s go back to the image of a web – things that are connected and resonate with each other to create a living, flexible framework of consciousness and action.

What makes these webs vibrate? What helps us build these pillars? What else but our character strengths, the inner energies that come from our values and fuel action? We can learn how to draw on them to promote brain health and mental wellbeing and do good in the world. What a trifecta!

This proactive mindset doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But I am thinking that AARP’s 6 Pillars will be easier to turn into habits when we link them to character strengths in ourselves that we may not yet recognize.

The same is true for the 6 Pillars of positive mental wellbeing. As we explore more of the 24 strengths, I believe this framework will give me (and, I hope, you) practical ways to put them into practice. The 6 pillars of brain health and wellbeing don’t depend on wealth or other external things, contrary to what we may think. They represent an attitude that can be cultivated through awareness.

Returning to HOPE – and I was delighted to read readers’ responses suggesting ways to generate hope communally as well as individually – now I can more easily understand how recognizing the power of hope in my life has exponentially increased my sense of meaning and purpose, given me higher life satisfaction, more self-acceptance, connection, autonomy – and happiness. All of these are signs of an ageless mind.

So let me give you the names of the 24 character strengths identified in Character Strengths and Virtues. They are grouped under — of course! — the 6 Virtues.

Which one would you like to explore with me next? Tell me in the Comments.

THE VIRTUE OF WISDOM

1. Creativity

2. Curiosity

3. Open-mindedness

4. Love of Learning

5. Perspective

   THE VIRTUE OF COURAGE

6. Bravery

7. Persistence

8. Integrity

9. Vitality

   THE VIRTUE OF HUMANITY

10. Love

11. Kindness

12. Social Intelligence

    THE VIRTUE OF JUSTICE

13. Citizenship

14. Fairness

15. Leadership

    THE VIRTUE OF TEMPERANCE

16. Forgiveness

17. Humility

18. Prudence

19. Self-regulation

    THE VIRTUE OF TRANSCENDENCE

20. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence

21. Gratitude

22. Hope

23. Humor

24. Spirituality

    ---

Copyright 2025 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

NOTE: This post is based on the presentation given by Lynne Berrett’s avatar, Lissena Wisdomseeker, at the International Women’s Day event in Second Life. Click the image above to see the video of the presentation.

It is a great honor to be here with you for International Women’s Day. The theme, “Give to Gain,” resonates very deeply with me.

I’d like to GIVE you a little personal history about the Women’s Movement from the perspective of a woman who is only a bit over 14 years old in Second Life but in the physical world will soon be 88. I hope it will GIVE you a few morsels to chew - along with the other delicious, nutritious food being served today - and help you GAIN some insights into the Women's Movement.

I discovered Second Life in my mid-70’s, just as I was winding down my psychotherapy practice and looking toward retirement. I think now that, unconsciously, I was already searching for a new source of meaning and purpose in life -- which longevity research tells us is a major factor in aging well.

I discovered there were many organizations online that offered programs for people like me, and I joined many of them. But when I saw Second Life demonstrated at a conference on positive aging, I knew I had found something very special that spoke to me in a different, more immediate way.

My bailiwick -- if I were 10 years younger I would probably call it my wheelhouse -- is a holistic, evidence-based approach to brain health. In Second Life I have been able to build a community and program that would be very difficult for me to create in the physical world. My projects here have certainly given new meaning and purpose to my “retirement” years. Events like today’s program are shining examples of the joyful, meaningful experiences that Second Life offers anyone at any age.

As you all know, we belong to an international, intergenerational, highly interactive community. In that spirit, I thought I would invite you to join me as I recount some moments in my own journey toward a new view of myself as a woman.

It began back in the early 1960’s when I was in my early 20’s. One of my friends, who came from a very traditional immigrant family like mine, told me she was reading a new book that questioned women’s traditional roles. It was The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s opening salvo as a leader of a new movement that was beginning to spark loud, often angry, public discourse.

Friedan’s book put into words many of the things I had experienced but had never thought much about. Why, for example, had my mother gotten a college degree but never worked outside our home? Why did so many women I knew get married right after high school or before they graduated from college -- and quickly became housewives? Why did I think I was an old maid when I was still unmarried at 25?

Of course, this “new” movement wasn’t actually new, but it was new to many of us.It brought exciting energy into our lives, raising possibilities about the most mundane things like -- men can learn to share the housework with us -– to the sublime – women can become doctors and lawyers (It was too early yet to imagine becoming astronauts.)

I was a young teaching assistant working on my M.A. at the time – one of two women on a stipend in a big English department at a big university. At the time it never occurred to me to wonder why more of my female friends hadn’t been given that way of paying for graduate school. Now I think it was because they were more outspoken than I was and were considered troublemakers. Also, there were gender quotas I didn’t know about. Clearly, my upbringing blinded me to gender discrimination, even though I thought I was a liberated woman -- at least much more liberated than my mother.

During that time many of us who had been teenage bobby-soxers in the mid-1950’s began to wake up, like Snow White, from a long sleep. I’m embarrassed to admit that when I first became old enough to vote, I walked into the polling place, only to learn that since I hadn’t registered, I couldn’t vote! That’s how politically ignorant I was.

My real awakening to the power of women coming together occurred finally in my late 20’s when my new husband and I moved to Vermont for his first teaching job at a progressive college. This was before Vermont went hippie. Everything except churches was closed on Sundays. The college, which was based on John Dewey’s principle of learning by doing, was viewed with suspicion by the townspeople. All of the faculty wives were older and much more politically aware than I was. They invited me to a meeting one night that led – much to my surprise -- to my finally joining the Women’s Movement.

That night in Vermont I was basically happy just to get out of the house – I had a young baby, and it was mud season. I had never heard of the group, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom -- WILPF. The American branch was founded by Jane Addams, who could be called the first professional social worker, and Emily Balch, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946.

That night the guest speaker was a woman named Carmelita Hinton. I was told she had founded a well-regarded progressive private school in Vermont. What I saw at first was simply an older woman in simple clothes, with gray braids wrapped around her head. She looked old-fashioned, even frumpy to me. You can see how ageist I was, too! But...she also came in on crutches -- because she had recently broken her leg skiing, at age 75! And when she started to talk with us, she was full of fire. She told us eloquently and in detail about the war developing in Vietnam, which was not on the public’s radar at the time -- and certainly not on mine. By the time that evening ended, I knew I wanted to be like Carmelita Hinton when I was her age. It was a defining moment in my life. I joined WILPF and became active in the anti-war movement, which was intertwined with the women’s movement.

We moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1967 so my husband could start his doctoral studies, and we spent the Vietnam War years there. Ann Arbor was a hotbed of anti-war protests and activist women’s groups. Many of the WILPF members there were in their 60’s and 70’s. They had been together for years, fighting for social justice out in the American Midwest, inspiring examples to us younger women. Later I realized that they were some of the unsung Mothers of the Women’s Movement. Of course they seemed very old to me then. But those “little old ladies in tennis shoes” -- the stereotype they themselves laughed about -- taught me a lot, without my realizing it, about loyalty, courage, and perseverance. I’ve never forgotten them.

Those were also the years of Consciousness-Raising Groups. For the first time women sat together and read Gloria Steinem and Simone de Beauvoir. Women novelists like Doris Lessing and Margaret Drabble showed us how to question the boundaries of our lives. While younger women joined communes, we in our 30’s (does anyone here remember “Don’t trust anyone over 30”?) organized babysitting co-ops and neighborhood versions of Fresh Direct so that nobody had to cook more than once a week -- we were too busy building our new identities.

Some of my friends left their families to “find themselves.” Some went back to school to become lawyers and doctors and, now that they could, astronauts. What I remember most is a feeling of being supported and protected by other women in everyday life. Friends I made during those years – those who are still alive – remain my closest, dearest friends, even though we live far from each other. I’d say we have become even closer now that there are fewer of us. We check in with each other more often. Sometimes we reminisce. But often we talk about you, the generations that have come after us. We admire you and we want to help you thrive in whatever way we can.

The 1970’s brought hard economic times after the Vietnam War ended. We had to move to find work. To my surprise, the job I took out of desperation opened up a new, unexpected career and life path. I started teaching first-generation students, many from immigrant families, at a liberal arts college in New York. At first I focused on teaching them how to write for college classes. Then I became a program counselor for at-risk students. Many of them were young women whose mothers worked in the garment industry.

I soon realized that they needed more than writing skills; they needed to feel they could succeed in college. So I went back to school myself, part time while I worked, and earned a masters degree in clinical social work because I wanted to learn how to better help them. I was part of an intergenerational, interracial team in the Higher Education Opportunity Program from 1977 to 2004. That kind of government program stopped being funded long ago. I am still angry about its demise, but happy that many of the young women -- and young men too -- went on to earn professional degrees. They are older now than I was then!

I have so many happy memories of those years -- of the students and the dedicated staff I worked with, most of them women. I learned about the value and pleasures of teamwork during those days — experiences that have helped me build the WBH Collective in Second Life.

One of the things I treasure most about Second Life is that I can continue mentoring and supporting younger generations here, something it would be very difficult to do, especially now, in my physical life. Let me give you a few examples.

In 2024 several women approached me to ask if there was an SL group for women turning 50. They wanted to be able to talk with other women, especially older women, about aging. I sent notices out in my SL groups (I have 4!) to see if there was interest in the idea. A small group of women came together and has been meeting weekly since then in a private area on our region. They range in age from just 50 to me. They are all “strong” women in different ways. The group decided we wanted our discussions to be free-form and responsive to the needs of whoever could attend that week. There is no leader. I am a member like everyone else, which is a relief!

I’d also like to tell you a little more about the program that our volunteers have helped me develop in Second Life. I guess you could call this my 3rd career swerve, and it would not exist without the generosity of so many women and men in SL, many of them past retirement age.

I founded WBH largely because my mother developed dementia in her early 80’s and came to live with us. I knew nothing about dementia – maybe because no one in my family had lived long enough to develop it – so my husband and I had a lot to learn. We started educating ourselves with the hope that our children would not have to take care of us. I brought that knowledge into Second Life to give others the benefit of our experience, because I saw we could reach a global audience here in a new, more direct way.

Many members of our leadership team and Collective volunteers are women. They have developed self-guided activities and programs that highlight women’s contributions to the world. For example:

• We have a Women in STEAM Museum, where you can learn about women scientists and artists and hear the voice of a woman scientist from The Science Circle here in SL.

• We have a Hall of Heroes, where anyone can add their information about their heroes. I chose Marian Diamond, who discovered neuroplasticity—the ability of our brains to change and grow to the end of life. She is one of my heroes, for sure.

• We have a Music and Art Park where visitors can interact with sculptures, poetry, and musical inventions.

• We have a Cinema Grove, where a member of our Collective who is in her early 90’s -- older than I am! -- has made videos of her unique Symbolic Modeling technique that sparks your own creativity.

These are just a few examples of the major role women play in our brain health programs. All of them are amazing people who have been so very generous with their talents for many years now. I cannot thank them enough.

Let me conclude by saying this. When I think about “Give to Gain” as words to live by, I think of all the women – and men – in my life who choose to give of themselves daily. One of the major pillars of my work as a psychotherapist is Positive Psychology, the study of human character strengths. I have even created a Character Strengths Park here in SL to offer an interactive way to discover your own strengths. Some of the crucial strengths that are helpful for aging well are perspective, hope, fairness, perseverance, zest, and kindness. All of these can help us give more to gain more when we deploy them.

I want to add a personal note here to explain why this is almost a crusade for me: I said my mother had a college degree yet never worked outside the home. My parents were from Italian immigrant families. The fact that she didn’t have to work was a status symbol in the 1950’s. It signaled that her husband was successful. But I think that dependency affected her in destructive ways. After our father died suddenly, when she was only in her late 60’s, she lived with my sister’s family and lost contact with her friends. When she developed vascular dementia and came to live with us, it was too late. I wish we had all known how lonely and stressed she had been for years.

The best thing that came out of that experience for me was a renewed awareness -- possibly the most important lesson of the Women’s Movement -- of how crucial it is to take charge of our lives, educate ourselves so we can do that wisely, and work together to make the changes we want to see happen. That is why I feel especially honored to be here today with you, celebrating positive actions by women, for women -- for all of humanity.

Thank you
Lynne Berrett (Lissena Wisdomseeker)

Copyright 2025 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

Thumbnail of this project: I am on a journey of exploration. I plan to visit each of the 24 character strengths that embody the 6 Virtues most valued by philosophers and religious thinkers: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence.* My goal is to evaluate their usefulness as tools for building an ageless mind. (*Based on Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Peterson & Seligman)

What is Hope?

In Positive Psychology, Hope is a strength of both heart and mind. It’s not just a pie-in-the-sky wish. If you’re strong in Hope, it’s natural and easy for you to see possibilities for positive change even in the darkest times. The energy you feel when Hope is one of your top strengths inspires you to perform acts that can make change more likely. Even if your attempts aren’t personally successful, they could lead to positive change in the future. To tweak an old saying, Hope is not for the faint of spirit.

I’ve taken the VIA Character Strengths Survey many times over the years. Hope has never moved up the list to become one of my top 5 strengths. I’ve decided to begin with it for two reasons. First, wherever I look and listen these days, the word Hope pops up in almost every discussion of major world problems as if it will provide a real solution to them. If you pay attention, you’ll see what I mean. Second, more personally, I wonder why Hope hasn’t been a greater strength for me to draw on. Could – or even, should – it be?

How I’ve been exploring my relationship with Hope

I’ve been using my new red notebook to reflect on the role, if any, that Hope has played in my own life. As E.M. Forster pithily pointed out: “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” So, I’ve been writing and doodling there over the past weeks. Here are some of the more useful connections I’ve made so far.

Josh and I belong to what’s often called The Silent Generation. We came of age in the mid-1950’s when American high school graduations usually concluded with the rousing anthem from Carousel: “Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.” What an inspirational and aspirational message it seemed then! Now I wonder why we were so insistent on keeping hope in our hearts. Wasn’t our post-war world peaceful, prosperous, and complacent?

Not really. As I look back on those times, there were plenty of protests: against atom bomb tests, for and against civil rights, not to mention bloody uprisings against brutal dictators and colonial regimes. In the mid 1950’s my own family lived in French Morocco for 6 months, dodging daily bombings and shootings by the police and liberation movements. Before that, I vividly remember the posters on our elementary classroom walls showing the wider death zones created by H-bombs compared to A-bombs. The admonition to “Duck and Cover” sounds ridiculous now. It was absurd then too, but a whole lot more scary to a child of those times.

Josh and I come from very different backgrounds, but we are both children of immigrants. Mine came from Italy to America, Josh’s from Poland to South Africa. Most of his father’s family emigrated to Cape Town in the early 1930’s. One of Josh’s clearest memories is of watching his father move pins around a wall map of Europe in the mid-1940’s as he followed the war news on the radio. In 1936, his father had traveled back to Poland by boat, a long journey from Cape Town through the Suez Canal to Genoa then by train into Poland itself. His goal was to help his two brothers and their families, who were still running the old family business, escape to the relative safety of South Africa. We don’t know exactly why, but his attempt was unsuccessful.

I have often reflected on how difficult that journey must have been for him and how the return trip must have been so dispiriting when he failed. We have the single memento from his visit: a small, worn, red photo album with one image of the family in Poland, standing on the steps of a small house, the village pharmacy they owned, in their winter coats. You can see the age range, from a tiny grandmother to the children.

They all perished in the war. It was many, many years before we were able to discover what had happened to them. Auschwitz, of course. In my mind’s eye, I see Dante’s cruel line, Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here, hovering over that little image, and I hear Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice whispering into my inner ear: “Some say the world will end in fire,/Some say in ice./From what I’ve tasted of desire/I hold with those who favor fire./But if it had to perish twice,/I think I know enough of hate/To know that for destruction ice/Is also great/And would suffice.”

As I’ve been gathering these swirling thoughts, and many more, in my notebook, I realize how ambivalent I have always felt about the “inspiring” message of Hope so often quoted from Anne Frank’s Diary: “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.” Doesn’t it sound pathetically delusional when you consider her fate? I realize I’ve wrestled with that contradiction for a long time. And I’ve wondered what – if anything -- would make Hope an honest, truly useful tool for building an ageless mind.

What I’ve discovered through this process

When I look at the research, I learn that Hope is associated with better outcomes when we face grave personal threats. It mobilizes us physically as well as mentally and emotionally. So, maybe, I could start by considering Anne Frank’s words in a different light. Maybe, although she was betrayed and did die in a concentration camp, her passionate belief in humanity helped her keep on writing, and writing saved her from total despair while she was alive. When self-expression is bolstered by the strength of Hope, could it have an even more profoundly beneficial impact that would reward my further exploration?

As I reflected on the multitude of “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” brought up by the process I’m using, Carl Jung’s words, ”Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes,” woke me up. What have Josh and I been doing for the past 25 and more years? Isn’t our own Ageless Mind Project founded on a hope that we could avoid, or at least delay, the onset of dementia if we educated ourselves and actively practiced what we learned? Our motivation was personal at first: we wanted to spare ourselves and our children that particular kind of suffering. Then we became committed to sharing our discoveries with others as well. We have learned, in our blessedly long lives, to act, always, as if we have the power of personal agency and choice -- even when we don’t. That message, I understand now, is what our little nonprofit is attempting to spread.

My Conclusions from this Thought Experiment

I think I also understand now why Hope is not – and likely never will be -- one of my greatest strengths, in spite of the central role it plays in our work. By nature, I seem to be a skeptic and a realist, like most people with my DNA. I don’t want to close my eyes to the outside world. I know, from reading History and reflecting on our own personal histories, that dark times have come repeatedly, have passed, and will come again. But I also have to acknowledge that Hope is necessary for humanity – and me -- if we’re to avoid despair. So, I am grateful for its presence in my life and its quiet contribution to my ongoing wellbeing.

What about you?

If you’d like to look at your own strengths, click on this link to take the free, well-validated Values In Action Survey I have used over many years to assess my Character Strengths at different moments. Their positions can move over time, highlighting the sometimes-subtle relationships among strengths that we don’t always recognize — as I have discovered. I wonder if the description of my process has struck any chord in you, perhaps prompted some memories and “aha! moments” of your own? It has surprised me at times and led me to conclusions I wouldn’t have predicted. That’s exciting in itself. I’m curious to learn what the other 23 character strengths will teach me along the way.

Coda: Music and Character Strengths

I asked Josh if there is a musician he especially associates with Hope. He immediately thought of Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter Beethoven wrote, but never sent, to his brothers (it was discovered only after his death) when he was facing the inexorable fact of his growing deafness.

Beethoven’s desperation is painful to read as he writes about considering suicide. Then, suddenly, his tone changes: “It was only my art that held me back. Oh, it seemed impossible to me to leave this world before I had produced all that I felt capable of producing….”

Perhaps writing about his greatest fear was a cathartic act, making it possible for Hope to rise up again. Josh points out that Beethoven uses the word art rather than music: music, for him, is a transcendent art, a source of spiritual upliftment. Perhaps what saved him from despair was his hope — his belief — that he would achieve immortality through the great works he would still create in spite of his deafness.

His Symphony #2 beautifully expresses this journey from darkness to light, from despair to a new kind of hope. You can watch it performed here.

Anyone can leave a comment or question below. Please do!

Copyright 2025 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

REMINDER: Never Miss a Class
Enrolling in “Waltzing Through Time” gives you access to both the live calls on Zoom and the archived recordings, which will be posted to the Ageless Mind Project website. So sign up even if you can’t attend the live class.

Listen to Josh tell you about the course:

All the music programs Josh creates are essential parts of our Ageless Mind Project, consciously designed to nourish mind, body, and spirit.

To learn more and sign up, visit our website: https://www.agelessmindproject.org/music-is-brain-food

Questions? Email us at AgelessMindProject@gmail.com

Copyright 2026 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Listen to Josh describe the course, which begins Wednesday, February 4th.

To learn more and sign up, visit our website: https://www.agelessmindproject.org/music-is-brain-food

Questions? Email us at AgelessMindProject@gmail.com

This is an invitation to join me on a journey of discovery this year.

Although I’m in my late 80’s, I’m still experimenting with tools that can help me experience old age as a time of growth, which is the essential meaning of an “ageless mind.”

When I say “tools,” I’m talking about theories and activities that anyone can explore through trial and error – that is, by learning what happens when you try them out on yourself. If you’re willing to do this along with me, I believe we will make an important contribution to the study of healthful aging.

Research is the foundation on which we will build these experiments. Real-time practice will teach us what actually helps us live in healthy ways that are authentic, natural, and can be sustained because they are a good fit with our core values, strengths, and personalities.

My own goals are simple: I want to learn to be more open to new challenges, more flexible in my thinking, more focused yet playful, more able to draw on the past wisely to guide me through present uncertainties. In short, I want to cultivate a dynamic approach to life.

Your goals may be quite different. The common place where we can start is in our willingness to explore, experiment, and implement what we learn about ourselves through this process. By sharing our discoveries we’ll provide others with vivid, honest examples of the diverse ways humans can age well. Even more crucially, we will showcase the processes through which this happens, as we model our own “learning by doing.”

Because I’m a lover of the written word, I am using a notebook to document my process. Josh uses music. The music programs he creates are essential parts of our Ageless Mind Project, consciously designed to nourish mind, body, and spirit. (You can find out more about his February course, Waltzing Through Time, here.)

My contribution to our mission this year is to document my personal experiments for you and encourage you to share your own. I’ve decided to begin by exploring whether Character Strengths can be effective tools for moving closer to my goals.

What are Character Strengths? Behaviors that express some of the most universally held values in human societies, specifically Wisdom, Love, Courage, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence. I began studying this concept back in the early 2000’s, when the field of Positive Psychology was new. I’ll be drawing on the massive research in Character Strengths and Virtues by two founders of the field, Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, for my inquiry. That manual has been central to my thinking as a psychotherapist and coach. Now I’d like to find out what I can learn from applying the same tool to my aging self. Stay tuned to find out what happens.

Why not get your own notebook (mine is red) — or use your phone or iPad or computer to document your own discoveries? This is a messy process, so don’t be shy about sharing half-formed thoughts in the comments. If enough of you respond, maybe we’ll want to create an easy way to talk together in real time too.

Watch for my first foray into strengths: I’ve decided to begin with Hope in my next post.

• Note: For anyone who is reading about the Ageless Mind Project for the first time: my husband, Josh, and I co-founded this nonprofit over 10 years ago. Starting in the mid-1990’s. when we were in our late 50’s, we took on the care of close family members who developed various forms of dementia. As a result of those difficult experiences, we committed ourselves to learning what we could do to protect our own quality of life and brain health as we aged. We hoped to prevent -- or at least delay -- the onset of the kinds of brain diseases that had stripped our loved ones of their memories and control over their lives. Since those days, when there was little information to guide us, the research on healthy longevity has grown exponentially and is easily accessible on the internet. But a basic question still persists: what can help us consistently apply all this knowledge to our daily lives? That is the key question we try to answer through this project.

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Copyright 2025 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

Listen to Josh tell you about the course:

“Waltzing Through Time” is a six-week, live course that meets once a week on Wednesdays between February 4th and March 11th from 10:30 to 11:30 am (Eastern).

Each class will be recorded and available to you as a permanent, archived file. So, if you can’t make the live classes you’ll still be able to enjoy the course.

Participants in the live classes will be able to ask questions and comment in voice and chat in Zoom.

Follow this link to see the schedule, details of what’s included in each class, and instructions on how to sign up: https://www.agelessmindproject.org/music-is-brain-food

Questions? Email us at AgelessMindProject@gmail.com

Copyright 2025 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Jena is such a talented artist and writer! I asked her to give me the link to her Etsy store because I want to buy some for family and thought you might too.

Gifts for family. Click on the images to be taken directly to the mugs on Etsy.

Questions for Jena? She can be reached at JenaBall@CritterKin.com or via Etsy’s message system.

Wishing you and yours a warm holiday season,
Lynne
P.S. Green tea is my favorite to drink from my mug. I’d love to hear yours.

Copyright 2025 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

I woke up this morning to sunshine after days of grey skies. What a difference the sun makes!

As I’m sitting by the window with a pad and pencil (because I still believe in the power of the hand-brain connection for a first draft) I’m thinking about who and what I feel grateful for this Thanksgiving.

The first thing that comes to mind is you, my fellow writers and readers. What fun is it to be a writer, after all, without readers?

What am I grateful for?

Did you know that you are instrumental in helping keep an 87-year-old’s mind, spirit and, yes, even body healthy in so many unexpected ways? Let me count them.

First of all, I thank you for introducing me to new ideas that spark my own thinking and writing. I find that being challenged by other points of view is more and more important as I get older because it forces me out of my comfort zones. Having to take in and assimilate new and sometimes difficult information is also highly useful: it builds my cognitive reserve and mental sharpness.

Those of you who come from younger generations offer me insights into the ways you use language and are experiencing current events. Your energy and curiosity are contagious. I am finding that reading you makes me feel quite hopeful about the future of a world “that has such people in’t.”

Some of you share your own personal stories and poetry and fiction. They give me a deeper sense of the things that are most meaningful to you. They also bring more beauty into my life, and we can never have enough of that kind of nourishment.

Some of you are word-based fighters for ideas that I sometimes agree with and sometimes don’t. But your fiery eloquence prompts me to more closely examine what I believe and why. I’ve come to appreciate the ability we humans apparently have to change our minds even at late stages of life.

What and how you write helps me stay engaged with the world: it prods me to continue to think, feel, and act as flexibly as possible, which is my definition of an ageless mind.

As my physical body ages and lets me know it, reading and writing have become even more precious. I’ve recently been re-reading many of the excellent books on Aging Well on my bookshelves. They speak to me in a different way now than they did fifty years ago, when I first embarked on the study of aging. It was mostly an academic understanding then; now it’s my reality.

The writer who speaks to me most powerfully about the realities of old age (at least right now, because I reserve the right to change my mind) is Diana Athill. Her two final memoirs, Somewhere Towards the End and Alive, Alive Oh! were written when she was 89 and 97. She died in 2019 at 98. I find comfort in her honesty and grit, her sense of humor and love of life. I’ll leave you with the final words from her last book: “…this book, of memories, thoughts and reflections…[is] a report of what living for ninety-seven years has taught one rather lucky old woman.” Today I also feel like one rather lucky old woman.

I hope, dear readers and writers, that reading about my experiments, experiences, and reflections on life can be as life-enhancing for you as your words are for me.

With Gratitude,

Lynne Berrett

Copyright 2025 by Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

I’d like to tell you more about the 8-week course I’ll be offering on Zoom, entitled Waltzing Through Time. Starting on Wednesday, September 17th., it will run for 8 weeks from 10:30 am to noon (EST). The course is being offered through the Lifetime Learners Institute. Lifetime Learners is a nonprofit in southern Connecticut that provides lifelong learning through Norwalk Community College. I’ve been creating courses for them since 2012 after I retired from teaching. To see a breakdown of the eight weeks see the schedule at the bottom of this post.

Using videos and interactions with class members to keep things lively, we will survey over 200 years of the waltz’s history, spending time on many of the biggest names in music (Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Ravel, Richard Rodgers, Benny Goodman, Leonard Bernstein, Dave Brubeck, to name just a few), and introduce you to someone you’ve probably never heard of - Joseph Lanner. Recognized as the first dance band leader, Lanner had his own “book” of waltzes and dances—a major attraction in Vienna during the opening decades of the 19^th century.

Waltzing Through Time also has personal meaning for me. Back in the day, when I was about 10 years old growing up in Cape Town South Africa, I vividly remember the emotional charge that the suite from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake gave me. It was a recording we had at home-- the same one owned by my married sister and one of my uncles. One of thrills for me was listening to the waltz from Act I—a vibrant number from the ball celebrating the coming of age of Prince Siegfried. Its unique mix of youthful energy and yearning had me hooked.

Fast forward to Christmas Day, 1959. That’s when I arrived in New York thanks to the generosity of my older brother, 18 years my senior, who was like a surrogate father. By a happy coincidence, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music had just started its opening run on Broadway with Mary Martin in the role of Maria. Some time in January 1960 I was taken to see the show. I was just overwhelmed. I also distinctly remember hearing my brother singing the opening strain of the title song “The hills are alive with the sound of music” while he was in the bathroom shaving.

Among the opening examples in my course, I’ll focus on a defining moment in the movie version of the musical, where Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as Capt. Von Trapp dance the ländler. This is an Austrian folk dance involving both circular movements and physical intimacy between the sexes— a dance that’s recognized as one of the primary sources of the waltz.

One of the biggest takeaways from Waltzing Through Time will be the sweeping emotional range of the waltz. It is not just music for dancing. It touches us in mysterious ways with feelings of joy — of yearning — of dreams unfulfilled.

I hope you will join us online from wherever you are. Below is the breakdown of the class schedule.

Week by Week Breakdown

• Week 1: From countryside to city, including Lanner, Schubert

• Week 2: Chopin and Brahms work their magic

• Week 3: Waltzing with the devil

• Week 4: “Waltz King” Johann Strauss II and a family dynasty

• Week 5: A mix of decadence and nobility, Ravel-style

• Week 6: “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” waltz treasures of Richard Rodgers

• Week 7: “Someday my prince will come,” Miles Davis and other jazz men

• Week 8: Dave Brubeck, the Nonesuch Waltz Project

Here is the link to sign up: https://reg139.imperisoft.com/LifetimeLearners/Search/Registration.aspx

Copyright 2025 by Joshua Berrett. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

This online course, offered through Lifetime Learners Institute, explores the surprising history of the waltz and the music that shaped it. The class starts on Wednesday, September 17th. It meets for eight weeks (September 17, October 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, November 5,12) from 10:30 am to Noon Eastern time.

Course Description

Condemned at one time for “the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compression of the bodies,” the waltz has flourished over some 200 years as one of the wonders of 3/4 time. Defying categorization, it straddles class, culture, genre, and style. And this year happens to be the 200th anniversary of the birth of “The Waltz King,” Johann Strauss II.

We begin in The Sound of Music countryside as we learn about the Ländler, a couples’ dance and the primary folk source of the waltz. Our next stop is Vienna, where we meet Joseph Lanner, a celebrity dance band pioneer during the Congress of Vienna (1815-16) and beyond, who created an historic “book” of his own music.

Highlights from the later 19th and early 20th centuries feature the music of Chopin, Brahms, Gounod, Liszt, the Waltz King (Johann Strauss II), Tchaikovsky, Léhar, Richard Strauss, and Puccini.

Waltzes in American popular music, Broadway shows, movies, and jazz make up the balance of the course. Composers, iconic performers, and producers include Al Jolson, Richard Rodgers, Dimitri Shostakovich, Benny Goodman, and Dave Brubeck.

Week by Week Breakdown

• Week 1: From countryside to city, including Lanner, Schubert

• Week 2: Chopin and Brahms work their magic

• Week 3: Waltzing with the devil

• Week 4: “Waltz King” Johann Strauss II and a family dynasty

• Week 5: A mix of decadence and nobility, Ravel-style

• Week 6: “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” waltz treasures of Richard Rodgers

• Week 7: “Someday my prince will come,” Miles Davis and other jazz men

• Week 8: Dave Brubeck, the Nonesuch Waltz Project

Here is the link to sign up: https://reg139.imperisoft.com/LifetimeLearners/Search/Registration.aspx

When you arrive at the Lifetime Learners page, look for Joshua Berrett’s name in the column on the left. Check the box beside his name and you’ll be taken to the course description and registration form (see below). The course will be a lot of fun.

NOTE: There is a yearly membership fee ($60) to join Lifetime Learners Institute in Norwalk, CT . Each 8-session course offered costs $50 more.

About Your Instructor Joshua Berrett

Joshua Berrett earned a BA from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the University of Michigan. He has also studied at the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, and the Tanglewood Music Center. He is a Professor Emeritus at Mercy University, a freelance violinist, and the author of many publications on music. He has made presentations nationally, appeared on NPR, and lectured abroad in such countries as Italy, Israel, and South Africa. With his wife, Lynne, he is co-founder of the non-profit Ageless Mind Project, Inc.

Copyright 2025 by Joshua Berrett. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

“…something I wouldn’t have imagined when I was young. Who can truly imagine not just being – but growing – old?” - Lynne

This seems as good a time as any to consider where I am in my life’s journey, so I am attempting to stand outside myself to gain a larger perspective. Of course, I tend to think in terms of our “ageless mind” paradigm -- that is, my full self. Here I’m focusing on a few of the many words we use to describe that sense of wholeness.

An ageless mind is alert, curious, reflective, creative. Cognitively, I recognize changes in my speed of memory retrieval, especially when I’m tired. Josh and I have a pact: when one of us wants to retrieve a word or name, we do not fill it in for each other unless asked, even if we immediately know it. We force ourselves to think. So far, even though I have literally fallen on my face several times in my life—always because I was distracted—my thinking still seems to be clear. I’ve asked my family to let me know when they see signs of muddle starting, because I remember how my siblings and I kept excusing changes in our mother until the day she couldn’t recall how to put her clothes on. Looking back now, I realize how far gone in denial we all were. An ageless mind is wise.

An ageless mind is grateful, kind, has a sense of purpose, and experiences awe. Emotionally, my life is filled with activities that feel very meaningful. In particular, my life in virtual worlds has helped me develop new friendships, many of them intergenerational – which would be hard for me to do now in the physical world. I have lived in a village of 10,000 people for almost 50 years, and all of my dearest friends and family live at least a car’s distance away. Each year I lose more longtime friends. The ones who are still alive have become even more precious. Once we have to stop driving, we will be cut off even more from them. So virtual relationships have become an emotional lifeline for me. Having a partner like Josh has immeasurably enriched my daily life in profound ways. We are both so grateful to still have each other, and we never take that for granted. I think of all the research pointing to the essential role that relationships play in the wellbeing of us hive-like humans. Partners, friends, even acquaintances can help us flourish -- especially people we can laugh with. An ageless mind is playful.

An ageless mind pays attention to the body and self-care. Physically, I am not untouched by time or heredity. I know that my forebearers on both sides were incapacitated or dead long before age 87, felled by strokes and heart attacks. Modern medicine has kept me alive so far. In the years that Josh and I have been studying and teaching about brain health, I of course learned a lot about bodily health – the importance of exercise, sleep, diet, etc. -- things that are common knowledge now. As always, consistently practicing what we know is the hard part. It’s easy to become unmotivated or (my Achilles heel) distracted, and to let good habits fall by the wayside. Habit change has been one of my great interests because I’ve experienced the benefits of developing even a single new healthy habit. An ageless mind is flexible.

Coming from a highly anxious family, I’ve had to pay special attention to learning how to calm myself. For the first 7 years of my life, during WW II, my mother and I spent a lot of time in a car, accompanying my father, who was in the Army Air Force, as he set up radar sites in many southern states. I was often frightened by the new places we stayed in, sometimes for just a few weeks. I had to be very quiet because most landlords did not want a child in their rentals. When I was three, my mother and I drove over the Rockies in winter to meet my father in California. She was terrified, and I was carsick every day. There was a lot of fear and uncertainty everywhere then. I’ve talked to other women who were young during that war and learned how much it affected us without our quite realizing it. Now I think I understand better why I am such a terrible backseat driver and can never sleep when someone else is driving. I have to stay awake to keep them awake and keep us all safe. An ageless mind is reflective.

Standing on my hill of memory at this moment, I am profoundly happy that I am still alive and have family and friends who share their lives with me. The world is more chaotic now than I’d like, but in my long life I have lived through several periods of chaos before. The main lesson I’ve learned from this is to take the long view of a better time -- and work for it personally and in the larger world. An ageless mind is engaged with life and hopeful about the future.

What words do you associate with an ageless mind? Do you disagree with any of the ones I’ve talked about here? I’d like to expand its meaning by adding your words to the list. Please put them into the Comments!

Copyright 2025 by Lynne Berrett. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

Why is music so central to our lives? We now know from embryology that by the second trimester of pregnancy - that is as early as the 17th week - an elementary form of the ear is already taking shape. So at this very early stage the fetus begins to respond to vibration, in general, as well as to the sound of the mother’s heartbeat, her breathing, her voice. It is all distilled in the pithy insight “We heard long before we could see.”

The sense of hearing, the first of our sensory organs to develop, is foundational to so much of who we become as human beings. And, at the other end of the life cycle, patients in a coma have been known to respond by arm twitches or fluttering eyelids to a familiar sound. Indeed, all through life we are part of a vast vibrating universe, affected as we are by changes in the weather, day and night. It all starts with the heartbeat and rhythm of our mother’s breathing heard in utero – something that is later transformed into the beating of a drum and the many other rhythms of music.

This kind of memory lays the foundation for the acquisition of language and all its speech inflections. It also is critical in establishing neural pathways for the establishment of a spatiotemporal sense, a sense of causality—”Oh that sound came from over there.” For that very reason echolocation would otherwise be impossible for the blind.

Characterized by Judy Collins as “truly powerful and fascinating, “ Ellen Mannes’s 2011 book The Power of Music opens with a thoroughly riveting chapter, “Feeling the Sound.” Among other things, she singles out “the groundbreaking research” of Sheila Woodward. As part of her doctoral studies at the University of Cape Town, Woodward worked with the Institute of Maritime Technology to develop a tiny underwater microphone that could be placed in the uterus. This hydrophone detected the rhythmic sound of blood rushing through the uterine artery as well as the sound of external singing. In short, “a landscape of musical sound” was found to surround the fetus –prompted by the playing of a Bach Brandenburg Concerto, the singing of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and more. The fetus was shown to respond to sounds as indicated by an elevated heart rate, echoing the mother’s response.

For full details, here is a link Woodward’s 1993 doctoral dissertation, “The transmission of music into the human uterus and the response to music of the human fetus and neonate”:

https://open.uct.ac.za/items/ebf41044-bbfd-4c51-9945-dcd61c0535e8

Fast forward to the present, it is worth noting that Sheila Woodward, after serving on the faculties of the University of Southern California and the University of South Florida, now directs an online Master of Music in Music Education program at East Washington University, a public university in Cheney, Washington .

Alexandra Lamont, Professor of Music Psychology at Keele University in the U.K, has published widely in the area of postnatal musical experience. But there is one article that is especially relevant here. Its title is “Infants’ Preferences for Familiar and Unfamiliar Music: A Socio-Cultural Study” (paper read at Society for Music Perception and Cognition at Kingston, Ontario, 9 August 2001), and is cited in Daniel J. Levitin’s, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (New York: Plume, 2007), 223–225.

Using a technique known as ”the conditioned head-turning procedure,” , she exposed babies to pieces of music chosen by the mother while still in the womb. Mother and child were placed midway between two loudspeakers. Pieces singled out ranged from classical (Mozart and Vivaldi) to Top 40, to reggae and world beat. From birth until the child’s first birthday, the baby was not exposed to the same music. Over one year later, all of the babies displayed significant preferences for the pieces they heard in the womb over similar pieces to which they had never been exposed. A control group tested with the same set of pieces displayed no clear preference. The key point is that they looked longer at the speaker playing the music that they had heard in utero than at the speaker playing similar but novel music. Levitin cites the example of a boy who had heard UB40’s reggae track “Many Rivers to Cross” played to a neonate which was then heard again a year later along with “Stop Loving You” by Freddie Mc Gregor. The infant would look longer at the speaker playing the familiar music.

So what can we conclude from all of the above? What is important for us to know either about how music shaped us as infants and/or as parents who want our children to be exposed to and reap the benefits of music before they’re born? Actually, there are no easy answers to these questions. Replicating the studies cited above and also drawing upon more diverse populations would yield more definitive results. That said, the extent to which fetal memory alone can define musical preferences is very hard to quantify. From early on, a child’s peer group is very likely to exert a strong influence, growing even stronger during the teenage years.

For those interested in more recent and more holistic research by Alexandra Lamont, a good place to start is:

How Does Music Define Us ? --2023 lecture at Keele University

We close with an invitation to all mothers and grandmothers out there to share any prenatal and postnatal musical experiences they have had that confirm, or maybe even refute, the research done by people by like Sheila Woodward and Alexandra Lamont.

Copyright 2025 by Joshua Berrett. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

Over the many years I have helped people learn how to listen to music with a greater appreciation for the craft and genius that create what they are hearing, I have focused on the key role four overlapping kinds of memory play in exciting our deepest emotions. This is one reason certain pieces remain meaningful for us throughout our lives.

The first kind of memory is what I call PERSONAL MEMORY

“That’s my kind of music.” They’re singing my song.” Is there any form of human expression more personal than music? How rarely do we hear someone say: “That’s my kind of poem,” or novel, play, painting, or movie? Musical memories define so much of who we are and the many transitions we pass through on life’s journey -- high school graduation, our first love, courtship, coping with a crisis, the first Broadway show or concert we attended — connecting us with others.

Think about the loss of a loved one or some musical icon: how we immerse ourselves in the music associated with that person, perhaps in an effort to bring them back to life. The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a powerful example of our human wish to defeat death. When the great musician Orpheus’s beloved Eurydice is fatally bitten by a snake, a bereft Orpheus descends to the underworld, where he softens the hearts of Pluto and his wife Proserpina by playing his lyre as he begs them to restore her to life. Their hearts are so touched by his music that they allow him to lead Eurydice back to the land of the living, provided he does not look at her. He loses her forever when he cannot resist casting a furtive glance back to be sure that she is indeed behind him. It’s not surprising that the earliest operas, from around the beginning of the 1600’s, draw so frequently upon this very personal, painful theme.

Closer to our own time, think of such songs as “Memories of You,” “My Way,” “Memory Lane,” “Laura,” “Unforgettable,” “Memory” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, or Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” with its haunting lyrics: “Stardust strain, beautiful refrain, I hear you ringing in my ears.”

Think too of the many popular operas, musicals, and movies that depend on themes or motifs to identify -- and then recall -- a character, thing, or situation for us. What about John Williams’ signature music for Darth Vader and Princess Leia in the Star War films. Or Aida’s theme in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida, Richard Wagner’s Valhalla leitmotif in Ring of the Nibelung, Bernard Herrmann’s many soundtracks for Hitchcock movies, James Horner’s “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic.

All of these examples are meant to help you identify your own favorite personal pieces of “memory music” and the emotional connections to the past they evoke. What music comes to your mind? For me it’s music I heard as a child, classical recordings my father brought into our house. For Lynne, it’s popular songs from the 30’s that her family sang in the car on their numerous travels. What about you? Please share some of your own “memory music” in the Comments.

In my next post I’ll describe the second kind of memory. As Yehudi Menuhin put it in The Music of Man: “We heard long before we could see.” I call this FETAL MEMORY.

Copyright 2025 by Joshua Berrett. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.

The yearly Virtual World Best Practices in Education Conference in Second Life (SL) is over. (For an overview of my participation, click this link.) If you’ve ever been to a conference, you know how it can pump you up and bring you new ideas and friends. Then you return to your everyday life. The ideas go on the back burner; the friends fade from your mind. You live far from each other; you won’t normally meet in your workaday world, not even on Zoom or Teams.

That doesn’t happen in quite the same way in SL, because you can continue to meet as part of an ongoing community. The new people you meet, the new friends you make, are easily reachable after the conference as their embodied avatars. They are just an Instant Message away from you when you are inworld and see their names pop up on your screen. You may just wave to each other – I mean that literally: you both IM the word “wave,” which suggests that you want to stay connected but don’t necessarily want to text chat right now. Or you can invite them for coffee in your SL home to continue the conversations you started at the conference.

At the end of this post you will be able to hear recordings of two of the people who spoke eloquently at the “Lifelong Learning Roundtable” that I co-moderated at the conference. They describe how SL has literally changed their lives. The panel itself barely scratched the surface of all the learning opportunities available to residents, even with many members of the audience contributing their own experiences. Some of the audience had learned how to build replicas of museums they loved or created new ones they imagined (for instance, a museum of cat lore); some had learned how to make and sell clothes that earned them real money; some had learned how to become DJs who then discovered how much they enjoyed sharing their research into the music they streamed. On and on….

All these folks are typical of the mature learners I meet every Monday at our informal Lifelong Learning Chats offered by the Virtual World Education Consortium, where I am a member of the founding board. Conversations there are full of energy, fun, and enlightenment as we share whatever is on our minds, usually something related to learning in virtual worlds. The topics can range from questions about the role of AI in SL and a call for help building a visionary sustainable city of the future in 3D to a question about the best places to buy a professional-looking outfit — all generated by whoever attends. It’s another easy, relaxed way for people with common interests to get to know and support each other inworld.

Give a listen to the voices of the two contributors to the “Lifelong Learning Roundtable” I mentioned earlier - Finn Bookmite and Tagline - in the recordings below. A word here about SL names: most people create Usernames other than their real names. This might be because, with SL’s thousands of users, finding a unique name – especially if it’s your name in your first life - isn’t simple, so most people make one up. Or it might be because someone prefers to separate their physical from their virtual identities to maintain their privacy. My practice is to use only their SL names when I talk about them. Tell us how you feel about their stories in the comments. They’d like to know.

Finn Bookmite

Tagline

by Lynne Berrett

Copyright 2025 by Lynne Berrett. All Rights Reserved.

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My goal in life is to unite my avocation with my vocation/As my two eyes make one in sight Robert Frost

It’s been a busy time in my life in virtual worlds.

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference in Second Life (which Jena just wrote about in our last post) is taking place online this week from Thursday April 3 through Saturday April 5th. Its theme is “Transitions,” a very apt word for this year.

I am clearly a conference junky because I will be participating in quite a few events: organizing and moderating a panel on lifelong learning opportunities in Second Life; organizing a visit to our Whole Brain Health (WBH) space to -- let’s be honest – show off the most recent innovative tools for immersive learning our team has been developing uses for there; being interviewed about the award I was given in 2021 for educational leadership in virtual worlds; guiding visitors through our VWBPE exhibit, Roots of Wisdom, created by our team; and assisting other presenters as well.

What I especially like about this conference is that it attracts hundreds of attendees from inside and outside SL. Some actually come in as avatars just for the events. Others watch them on Livestream and later on YouTube recordings. I’ve been attending and presenting at VWBPE since my early days in Second Life. As I think about it, it gave me a less stressful, certainly less expensive way to continue what I’d been doing before discovering virtual worlds.

I first learned about SL at a 2012 conference on Positive Aging (PA) in Los Angeles where Josh and I gave an interactive workshop on music for brain health. We had been presenting our dog and pony show in libraries, at conferences, over the telephone (pre-Zoom days!), and on our website since the early 2000’s. The demonstration of Second Life at the PA conference attracted a lot of attention, but I was one of the few who wanted to find out more. So I asked the major presenter, who was (ta-da!) our Jena Ball, to show me how to enter Second Life. The rest is history.

I was 73 years old at the time. At first, learning how to navigate a virtual world was challenging. I had very little computer experience. But I persevered, helped by many people there and also, probably, by my top character strength, curiosity. At first, I was simply enchanted by the visual beauty of an environment designed and built by so many creative residents. The whole place fired my imagination. Soon I began to want to do something meaningful myself.

I put my toe in the water by giving my first presentation at a conference inworld sponsored by Virtual Ability, where I introduced our holistic approach to brain health based on science. Virtual Ability is a highly respected nonprofit that provides support and community for people who have physical and other limitations. One woman who had lost the ability to walk told me SL had liberated her: she could ride horses and ice skate there, things she had loved to do before her illness. Most importantly, she had made new friends from all over the world. She didn’t have any time anymore to feel lonely and depressed.

The response at that conference encouraged me to establish a program inworld that I named Whole Brain Health. I was very lucky soon after that to meet two very special people who felt as excited about WBH as I did. They joined me in building a space that drew others to us. It turned out that SL was home to many more retirees than I had realized, and a lot of them were looking for something meaningful to do inworld. They became our volunteer base, the WBH Collective. We’re still growing, a group with about 30 members now who host discussions and workshops, play live or recorded music in all genres, and create immersive, interactive learning experiences for humans in their avatar bodies.

Over the years, since WBH was founded in 2013, we’ve become known for the many ways we increase the wellbeing of SL residents. We’ve experimented with many kinds of activities, beginning with a daylong Brain Health Fair each month. In 2023 we hosted our own conference on Healthful Aging. It was supposed to be a simple, brief event, but so many people wanted to be presenters that it ended up lasting a week. Every day was filled with speakers and events. You can read about many of our presenters here.

For me, personally, life in SL has been play more than work. I am highly engaged in things that enrich my whole being. I’ve had to become more flexible and am much more social than introverte-me ever was before SL. I’ve also developed skills I would never have imagined. At 86 I keep surprising myself with new ideas. I laugh a lot. I feel very fortunate that I was brave enough to take this leap into the unknown.

Circling back to this year’s VWBPE conference with more specific information:

As I said, I am co-moderating the first Roundtable on lifelong learning that will highlight the many places to learn about art, science, poetry, building, history, religion, technology, etc. right in SL. We want our audience to be part of conversation, so it will be lively. That’s on Saturday April 5 at 10 am PDT.

On Saturday April 5 at 2pm PDT I’ll be interviewed as the 2021 recipient of the Thinkerer Award for Educational Leadership at the conference. I’ll share how receiving that award has contributed to my growth. As I said in my acceptance speech then, and I’ll repeat in the interview, anything I have accomplished could not have been done without the WBH Collective.

And on Sunday April 6, from 11 am to 1 pm PDT, our WBH Collective is hosting one of VWBPE’s immersive experiences. We’ll take you to 5 of our self-guided learning areas to experience the pleasure of learning-by-doing. You’ll visit a piece of Africa and an interactive brain large enough to fly around in. Your guide will be the retired neurologist who built it.

Our colorful exhibit at the conference, Roots of Wisdom: Listen, Learn, Grow displays some of the innovations we are employing to make lifelong learning more immersive and active.

I hope I’ve been able to convey, somewhat adequately, how life in a virtual world has enhanced my ability to design an ageless mind. You may never want to try it yourself, but reading about my adventures may spark your own experiments and adventures. I hope you’ll share them with us here. Each person’s story has the potential to ignite other minds.

The program for the VWBPE conference is available online here: https://www.vwbpe.org/conference/vwbpe25-program.

If you are not familiar with SL and would like to attend the conference and visit our exhibit or watch on livestream or on recordings afterwards, write to me @agelessmindproject@gmail.com for more information. I’m happy to help.

Lynne

Copyright 2025 by Lynne Berrett. All Rights Reserved.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation directly to the Ageless Mind Project (AMP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit. To donate, click on the button below.