The legendary Norman Lear had some sage advice for all of us about aging well

Norman Lear popped up on my computer screen at the designated time, wearing his signature bucket hat. Gibbs was a cast member on Lear’s TV sitcom “The Jeffersons.” “So long as I am interested in the next, I’m moving,” Lear said. As one friend explained: “He’s made two violins, he does engraving, he’s a painter, he’s currently creating animation, he’s constantly learning about physics, geometry, fractiles.” At 93, Lear once asked, in a New York Times interview, “Aren’t you expected to grow, learn more about yourself, learn more about the world? There’s a good time to be had at this age.” Marty Kaplan, director of USC’s Norman Lear Center — established in 2000 by the Lear family to study the impact of entertainment on society — said Lear was attending writers’ meetings and giving notes on current projects right up until the end. In a tribute on the USC center’s website, Kaplan said that Lear “moved our hearts and minds to embrace our common humanity and live up to what is best in us.” He said that in the hours after Lear’s death, he was looking through his biography, “Even This I Get to Experience,” and was struck by the epigraph.