When in doubt, risk it
Sacrifice is a form of bargaining.
A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with "a sort of greedy enjoyment," as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was "saturated with the bouquet of silence."
Forgive everybody but yourself.
Don't try to convert the elderly person; circumvent him.
Genius is initiative on fire.