What does it mean to be an octogenarian navigating the edge of eight with curiosity, humor, and depth? Philip Slayton—law professor, lawyer, author, and past PEN Canada president—joins the conversation to reflect on his acclaimed book All Remaining Passengers and the unique challenges and rewards of growing older. From embracing reinvention and honoring personal history to staying creative and deeply connected, Philip shares the emotional and philosophical balance of living meaningfully in your later years. This candid and uplifting dialogue reminds us that aging, while complex, can also be a time of extraordinary perspective, purpose, and discovery.
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All Remaining Passengers: An Octogenarian’s Take On Legacy With Philip Slayton
Essays From The Edge Of Eighty
Embracing The Edge Of 80: Philip Slaton’s Journey
Our guest is Philip Slayton, who’s coming to us from Toronto. Philip is a law professor, law firm partner, author, and past president of Penn Canada. He has written a book, which is a collection of essays that he calls All Remaining Passengers: Essays From the Edge of Eighty. For those of you who aspire to be part of Club O, I recommend you read this book. It’s really interesting and fun. Welcome to the show, Philip.
Thank you, Gail. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Let’s start out by talking about this book, All Remaining Passengers, your essay collection. First of all, how does it feel for you to be a member of Club O?
I have mixed feelings about it, Gail. First of all, as Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones said once at a concert, “I’m happy to be here. I’d be happy to be anywhere.” It’s good that I’m here, first of all. Secondly, as everybody who is an octogenarian knows, it has its issues, it has its problems, but on the whole, there are a lot of positive things about it, and I’m fine.
One of the essays that I read speaks about being realistic about going older and trying to balance reality with optimism. How do you balance those two?
As you grow old, you should not ignore or pretend the problems that I’ve just mentioned don’t exist. There are big problems connected with getting old. One of them, for example, is health. Older people tend to have more health issues that they have to deal with. Another big problem, being old, or in my case, I’m 81 now, is that people you care for, friends, family, have an unfortunate habit of dying on you. Your world hollows out, and you lose people that mean a lot to you.
That’s another hard thing to grapple with, but you cannot ignore these things. You cannot pretend they’re not happening. You have to face up to them. You have to think about them. You have to deal with them as best you can. You have to carry on with the positive aspects of life that make life worth living. There is a balance to be struck, as you suggest, for sure. When you strike that balance, you must remember that it is a balance. There is both bad and good, and you have to deal with both. Deal with the bad and exploit the good.
I am not a member of Club O yet, and I hope to be, but I’ve already lost people along the way who I feel left the planet way too early. How is that different from maybe being at an age where you feel like this is just destiny and your biology is your destiny and here we are.
When you get to be my age, you know for sure that you’re running out of runway. You know there’s much more past to your life than there is future. Some people find that depressing. Some people find it frightening. I don’t fit into either of those camps.
How do you find it?
I don’t fit into either of those camps.
Which camp are you in?
Not in either of those camps. The camp of here it is. Face the facts, face up to reality, and do the best you can and be as creative as you can, be as social as you can, active as you can in the circumstances that you find yourself in. What I’m trying to say, Gail, is you don’t pretend that there are not bad things associated with being old, because for sure there are. Don’t let those things obsess you unnecessarily, and focus on the good things. There will always be good things. For example, one thing in particular, it may be that friends and family, people that you care for a great deal, have died. That’s a source of sadness and grief and regret, but they haven’t all died. There are many still left. Those people are a source of joy and happiness, and fun.
That’s a great way to put it. I like that. It’s a great way of looking at life when you’re getting, I like to say, older, not old, but older. We’re all getting older, whatever age we are.
Everybody on the planet, Gail, is getting older every day.
We’re always a day older than we were yesterday.
That is correct.
As you grow older, you should not ignore or pretend problems don’t exist.
Cultivating Curiosity: New Passions In Later Life
What would you say to our readers who want to be as vital as you are in their ‘80s? What would you tell them to do?
When I think of my own life, by the way, I think it’s important to think of your life. Joan Didion, the famous American writer, said, “We all tell ourselves stories to be able to live. We all tell ourselves stories about our lives. We think about our lives. We construct a narrative almost as if we were a character in a novel. I think you need to do that to make sense of your existence.” That said, when I think about my life, I think one of the driving forces has been curiosity.
I’m a curious person. I like to know things. I’ve developed new interests quite recently in my old age. For example, I used to ignore the bird kingdom. One day, I looked around and I thought, “These birds, this is fantastic. The bird world is fantastic.” There are 11,000 species of birds in the world. Some of them are incredibly beautiful. They all do very interesting and complicated things. I got interested quite recently, in the last year or so, in birds. I became a birder.
What’s your favorite bird group?
For example, earlier this year, to Costa Rica, which has about 1,000, 1,100 different species of birds. I went there as a bird watcher, as a birder, trying to add to my life list. That’s a new interest of mine. I have others as well. About twenty years ago, when I was in my early 60s, my wife said to me, “You should learn to play the piano.” She said, “I’m giving you some piano lessons for your birthday.” That was twenty years ago.
I started taking piano lessons, and I still do. I’m not a very good piano player, but I’m certainly better than I was twenty years ago. That was another relatively new interest. I think you need to recognize that, even though you’re old, you can take on new interests. You can learn new things. You can do new things. You can be curious about the world and life, and that will make your life, even when you’re old, interesting and fulfilling.
I totally agree. I always say at the end of each podcast, stay curious and stay connected, because those are the two pillars that have come to me throughout my doing this podcast of people who are successful at Growing Older with Gusto. That’s what they do. They do what you’re doing, precisely.
I certainly agree with the second thing you mentioned, in addition to curiosity, staying connected. I mean, the lonely person is a depressed person. Some people cannot help being lonely because of particular circumstances they encounter, but it’s best to be friends. If you’re happy enough, if you’re lucky enough to have a family, as I am, and I have grandchildren, that’s wonderful. You need to keep in touch with these people. You need to be part of their lives. You need to make a wide circle. You need to go out and have lunch with your friends as often as possible. As you say, quite correctly, Gail, you must stay connected.
Career Pivots & Purpose: Finding Joy In New Endeavors
Aside from your new birding hobby, what’s given you the greatest pleasure as you’ve navigated through your life so far?
I’ve changed careers twice in my life. I began my career as a legal academic. You mentioned I was a law professor. I did that for quite some time. After a while, I said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I became a practicing lawyer on Toronto’s Bay Street, which is the Canadian equivalent of Wall Street. I did that for twenty years.
When I was 55, much to the astonishment of my partners, my law firm, I left law, I resigned. I left the law firm. I haven’t given it a second thought since then. I began writing books. The book that you looked at recently, My Remaining Passengers, is my ninth book. As I like to say, “Some of my books are better than some of the other ones.” I developed this third career as a writer. By the way, that was fed considerably by the curiosity that I mentioned.
I was curious about things. I wrote a book about antisemitism. I was curious about it. I learned about it. That curiosity and that learning grew that book. I’ve written a book about tennis, which is about as far from antisemitism as you can get, because I was interested and curious about it. That’s what’s kept me going. I’m just getting a new book now, which I hope I’ll finish before, as you put it, I leave the planet. That it gives me a reason to get up in the morning, something I want to do, something I enjoy.
You have a purpose. That’s great. That’s very important. This all remains. I just love the title. Before we switch over to Substack, I’m so impressed that you were on there before I was. That’s for sure. Any favorite philosophies that you have about life?
I don’t have any particular philosophy about my life other than the things I’ve been talking to you about, which is, it’s beautifully summed up by the way you close your podcast, stay curious, stay connected. That’s maybe not a philosophy, that’s a big grand word philosophy, but it’s certainly good advice. I would encourage people to follow it.
Society’s Evolution: Digital Age & Global Uncertainty
In your opinion, what have been the greatest changes in society throughout your lifetime?
That’s a big question. I was born in 1944. When I was born, World War II had been yet finished. The changes in society in general, Western societies, or all societies have been enormous. We all know what some of them have been. If I had to pick the single biggest change, it would be the advent of digital technology and the internet and all of that stuff, which has changed everything. It continues to change everything.
A whole host of other changes. It’s been enormous. I sometimes say that I was born in the golden age. I was born in 1944 in England. My family came to Canada when I was ten years old. We lived in Canada during a very peaceful, prosperous time. There are all kinds of opportunities for everybody. We benefited. My family and I benefited enormously from that. Unfortunately, has changed now. I don’t think even in a country like Canada, which is a blessed country compared to most. You could say that we live in golden times.
There’s too much social uncertainty. There’s too much economic uncertainty. We are necessarily caught up in world events, whether we like it or not. We are necessarily affected by the governments and administrations of other countries. I won’t mention anyone in particular, whether we like it or not. There’s a sense of insecurity, a sense of unpredictability that’s changed things. That’s been a big change as well in my lifetime. I think that is common to pretty much all societies.
You’re absolutely right. Getting over to Substack, and you’ll have to tell me a little bit more about how you ended up getting on subject, but that’s interesting. You write about why old people dance. Can you tell us why dancing is so important to people as they grow older?
Let me just back up a little bit and talk to you about the Substack, which is called My Substack, which is called The End Game. I started that in 2022, I think it was November or December, but I had a friend who had a Substack, still does. I was having lunch with her. I was talking to her about her Substack. She said, “It’s easy. You should do one.” “I’ll do one.” Just like that. I started doing it weekly. It still is weekly, although occasionally I miss a week for some reason. The last Substack that I did was, I think, 117 or 118.
I’ve done a lot of them and have necessarily done that many, and I continue to do them. I had to range fairly far afield. The common theme is always something hopefully of interest to older people, it is upon their life. I’ve had to range quite far afield. On the dancing thing, specifically about dancing, I was a recent one. My eye was caught by an article in the New York Times, I don’t know, it’s probably about a month or six weeks ago now, about a program, I think, in Brussels. What’s for old people to go to nightclubs? Some of these people are really old people.
Like 100?
They all get dressed up and they all get in a bus. You go to this nightclub, like, and they dance the night away as best they can. There were some photographs commenting this article, it was extraordinary. Some of these old people, by the way, didn’t behave terribly well. One of these bartenders of this nightclub commented that some of them get so drunk pass out and have to go take the old folks home.
You have to call the medical alerts to get them off the floor, or what happens?
The lonely person is a depressed person.
This was my interest. I started looking around. I discovered other such places. One in the United States, I think, was in Chicago or something like that. This is interesting. Of course, there are some medical conditions like Parkinson’s, for example, movement disorder conditions, that old people sometimes have that benefit from dancing. The idea that you’re old, you can barely totter down the street, you need a walker or a cane or something, that’s inevitable if you’re old. Not so. You could be going out to a nightclub and dancing. This deserved a little bit of publicity, so that particular sound.
It was very cute. I enjoyed reading that. That was great.
My last subject, which I don’t know if you’ve seen it, Gail, is about Keith Richards, a famous member of the Rolling Stones. Ringo Starr, also famous for the Beatles. Why them? It’s because Keith Richards is 81 now, Ringo Starr is 85, and they’re both still touring as musicians and having a wonderful time.
Paul McCartney is coming back to Chicago this fall.
He’s well into his 80s. I think he’s not sure how old he is, but he’s well into his 80s.
He’s amazing.
These are people who like what they do, and they’re going to keep doing it.
That’s wonderful. I want to ask you, though, about that one submission you have about why old people dance. What is Zumba Gold? What is that?
I didn’t go back to look up exactly what it is, but I think it’s a dance.
I used to do Zumba. I’m assuming it’s a form of dance for older people.
You always say, Gail, you know more about this than I do. I should be asking you.
Unpacking Ancient Hatred: Insights On Anti-Semitism
I don’t know. I just thought it was cute. Anyway, so you mentioned earlier, and I wanted to talk with you a little bit about your book on Antisemitism: An Ancient Hatred in the Age of Identity Politics. It’s so relevant now. What inspired you to write it? I know you were curious about the topic, but what was the impetus?
What inspired me to write about it was a call from a publisher who said, “We want to do a book on antisemitism. We think, “You are the guy.” I said, “I don’t think I’m a guy. I don’t think I am. I never thought about writing a book on this subject.” I thought about it after that phone call, and I said, “This is a really interesting subject. It’s something I know a little bit about.” I’m Jewish myself. Something I know a little bit about, but not a lot. This would be a good opportunity, getting back to the curiosity thing, to get at this subject and think about it, write about it, and try and understand it.
Whether we like it or not, there’s a sense of insecurity and unpredictability that’s changed things.
I rang the publisher back and said, “I’m the guy. I’ll do it.” That’s what I did. I’m very glad I did. I learned a huge amount. I’m proud of that book. I think of the nine books I mentioned to you before, some of which, as I said, are better than the others. That’s particularly good. Although in a way, the timing came out in June of 2022 or 2023. It came out before October 7th. Of course, October 7th changed everything. If I wrote that book today, it would be a different book. I don’t even know how to describe that. That was a feature.
I am familiar with antisemitism, encountered a lot of it growing up. Any personal discoveries that you made as you were going through the writing process of that book?
Personal discoveries? It’s interesting. Although I’m Jewish, my family was non-observant. I always had the sense I was Jewish and so on, but we didn’t belong to a synagogue, for example. We didn’t celebrate the major Jewish holidays on my father’s, and I pretended to, but it wasn’t committed or genuine. I never felt other than some vague way, particularly Jewish. As I wrote that book, I came to feel much more strongly my Jewish identity.
I did that for me at a personal level. As I wrote it as well, my views of all kinds of things, of the history of the Jewish people, of the relations between Judaism and Islam, between Judaism and Christianity, the circumstances in the Middle East, and all of that developed what antisemitism was and how to think about it. All those things developed. I remember this book. Certainly, don’t know if any of my readers benefited from the book, but I certainly benefited from writing it, because of understanding and knowledge.
I’ve heard that people, as they get older, if they weren’t particularly religious, they tend to become a little bit more religious. Have you encountered that?
No, I wouldn’t describe myself as religious.
Not necessarily observant, but just feeling that they need something more spiritual, maybe.
No, Gail, I don’t think I’m particularly talking about that. I think I’m talking about more, where exactly do I belong? What is the history of my family and of the people that my family belongs to? I think that’s important, particularly in the world today, or at least until fairly recently, people tended to be somewhat ruthless.
They didn’t think too much about stuff like that, the history of themselves, of their families, and of the tribes that their families belonged to. Now things are changing. I think with the new political movements in the United States, for example, your vice president, JD Vance, talks a lot about his family and his people from Appalachia, about the fact that his family is buried in a graveyard in Kentucky, and you can go there and see these graves.
That gives him a sense of belonging to the United States and the people of the United States that other people don’t have. Those other people who are in the United States do not have that feeling. Maybe their presence in the United States is suspect, and so on. A whole long discussion you can have there. I think people do feel the need to think about where they’re from. I think getting back to this book of antisemitism, one of the payoffs for me was exploring and thinking about that in my case.
Any takeaways that you would like people who are going to read this book to have after they’ve read the book?
Which book? The Antisemitism book?
Yes.
There’s a lot in it. I think it’s not a particularly long book. If I may say so myself, I think it reads well. It’s not a great academic with zillions of footnotes, although there are a of footnotes. Inevitably, the thing that comes out of the book most of all is the creation of the state of Israel and the implications of that for Jewish people, the implications for Jewish people all around the world, not just those in Israel or the state it is and its history in the Middle East.
Of course, now the circumstances in the Middle East, which in my opinion, catastrophic for everybody, including Israel, including Jews in the diaspora. I think that even though we’re perhaps reading the book in hindsight now, that comes up powerfully in the book. I’m particularly interested in questions such as whether or not it’s antisemitic to call someone a Zionist. I don’t believe it is. Many people do, and increasingly that’s become the case since October 7.
I’m interested in questions like that. I do think the approach that people have to these questions is awfully muddled. They need to try and think them through carefully and logically, but that so seldom happens. Often, the discussion is very quickly overtaken by emotion. People cease to think clearly about these issues. Often, by the way, people are not ignorant of the history as well. It’s very important to understand the history.
Navigating The Literary Landscape: Where To Find Philip Slaton’s Work
If our readers would like to find your books, it’s particularly your Antisemitism book and the one we’ve talked about, the All Remaining Passengers, where can they go?
I’ve always liked to admit this, but the simplest way to do it is to get on the Amazon.
Of course.
It’s inevitable, Gail. Just another few cents in the pocket of Jeff Bezos. I’m sorry, I cannot help it. That’s the easiest way to do it.
I agree with you totally. It’s been a pleasure talking with you, Philip, and I hope to have you back to talk about the next book and stay in touch. To all our listeners, thanks for tuning in. Please share this podcast with your friends and family if you’ve enjoyed it. How can you not enjoy it? Stay curious and stay connected.
Thank you, Gail. It’s been a pleasure.
Thanks.
Bye.
Bye.
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