When I was younger I could never understand why anyone would want to die. Life is beyond cool. There's always something new and amazing to discover about it no matter how small or large a life you live. Existence has much to offer anywhere from the human scale all the way down to elementary particles and all the up to vast superclusters of galaxies. It's practically impossible to be bored and even when you are, boredom can prove to be a wellspring of creativity allowing for even greater enjoyment of life. So why would anyone want to leave it behind?
And to be clear for a moment, I'm not talking about obvious kinds of suffering like cancer or neverending pain; no, I'm talking about how when people get old that they eventually come to terms with their mortality and even embrace it with a smile. How does that happen?
Personally, I suspect obsolescence...
I feel like I've crossed sometime in the past few years a critical point in one's life: the 50/50 point. I feel slightly more than 50% obsolete; like I'm no longer on the "winning" side.
It makes me think of senior citizens, especially those who have made it to an advanced age. Think of how different their world is from when they were young in terms of technology, culture, their place in the world, etc. It must be tough and psychologically draining over time to endure. I think of the theme song to All in the Family. It's pretty much an ode to a lost way of life and though that way of life was clearly better for some (read: straight white male) folks than for others, it captures that feeling of the past is gone and we, the current generation, will never be relevant again.
It's not necessarily the end of the world...just the end of your world. Things need to change if they are to both survive and improve. It's the very mantra of evolution: adapt or die. In a sense that's what's going on psychologically. Society is constantly changing and you have to either adapt to its changes or become irrelevant.
The thing is...adapting is stressful. I suppose it's easier to do when one is young and still figuring shit out but I've found over the years that I'd like to enjoy the fruits of my labor but life insists upon going on. It'd be nice if technology could maybe slow its progress for a little while that we might enjoy and master the changes wrought but the next version/update is always around the corner.
Culturally it'd be nice if things were still like they were in the 1990's. Things felt more understandable then. The younger generation's ways are definitely not my own. It'd be wrong to begrudge the advances made in women's and gay rights but I will admit it's frustrating to have to adapt a language I've been using most my life...which is a stupid criticism, yes. It demands defensive posturing when being told how your way of thinking reflects a life led in Easy Mode (aka: privilege) and that the power I never knew I had needed to be shared. Our fellow citizens deserve their rights, yes. But still annoying, though...and strange to think one's been wrong all this time.
It's not like mine's the only paradigm shift.
But I feel increasingly obsolete and that obsolescence is slowly taking its toll. I'm sure I have a long way to go; decades, no doubt. Yet I feel as time marches on, I will feel increasingly comfortable letting go of my hold on this world because it will simply take too much to keep fighting it to maintain my sense of normalcy.
Maybe that's why I dream I'm the villain in any daydream involving the supernatural. Using my power to hold the world to my will rather than accepting it. I always identify with the villain who wants to know how the story ends or wants things to be the way they used to be or put some drag on the pace of change or to otherwise preserve what's been.
It's weird to think that when my time has come, provided I'm not to be taken prematurely, that I will actually be willing to go; be willing to lay down the burden of living and have it carried by the next generation. It still sounds so far-fetched but surely it will happen, no?
Weird...
No comments:
Post a Comment