Old People

[abcrystcats]

Wow! Some interesting and varied replies to this topic! Thank you all.

It isn't so much about old age equalling a loss of energy. What I see is that today's older generation has a ton of energy --physical, emotional and intellectual vigor to spare. My father has an active and lively mind. So does my uncle. So many people seem to be the same to me ... and from my perspective, they're coasting. It's like they're saying they gave at the office, and now it's their time relax and enjoy life. I find that frustrating.

My uncle gets up at 6:00 AM to pursue a life of writing his latest novel that he knows will never get published and will have probably zero impact on the world. I am sure he gets a lot out of this amusement, and he is an excellent writer. But the last time I visited, he and my aunt told me in almost the same breath that they realize print is becoming obsolete and they worry about what will happen to their own extensive small library when they pass away. Will the books get thrown out, destroyed? Why take your golden years, your last years, vouchsafed to you by the clever machinations of FDR's Social Security Plan and the economic prosperity of the last 50 years, and throw it away on hobbies?

I just don't get it. My dad does the same. He reads history and relentlessly tracks down dead relatives, sending away for death certificates and other trivia. He is building a huge genealogy file for his one and only grandson. I was helping him do this for a little while. I admit I was fascinated (and still am!) by everything I was discovering. Then, one day not long ago it dawned on me that no one is going to give a good god damn about what my dad or I find out. The one descendant of our family is not going to give a rip about all these dead people. It's a waste. We are pursuing our own amusement and nothing else.

I admit I felt guilty for wasting a year off of work after nearly 25 years of being a full time employee for one company or another. I got up late all the time, and just loafed. I felt I should have SPENT my time more productively. I should have been more goal-oriented. I looked at my older retired relatives who get up every day at the crack of dawn. They are all DOING something! But then I got to look more closely at what they were DOING .... and I realized that it's no better than doing NOTHING.

If LRod is right and "being old means you cease to be part of the world " then the examples I have used above have certainly done exactly that!

Retire, tune in, turn on and drop out ... that appears to be the way of it from my point of view, and that is not inspiring.


I admit I have waged a lifelong internal battle between the temptation to do the things I find amusing and interesting and the things are that are practical and meaningful and have some real impact. Working with a cat rescue gets categorized as meaningful, but reading poetry or literature or history for me definitely falls into the amusement area. Writing a novel because I like writing is, well, FUN. Protesting the Iraq War, on the other hand, would be courageous and MEANINGFUL. It would be great if my dad, for instance, could be as intellectually interested in current events as he is in the Civil and Revolutionary Wars ...

The best answer I've gotten so far to the WHY part of this question is a variation on "I'm tired" best expressed by Buddhabitch. And she's right. I can relate to that feeling. But if she's tired, then so am I. We can all be tired together, young and old and in between, and ignore any pursuit that doesn't amuse us or entertain us or make us feel entirely happy with the state of our worlds.

Z -- I am envious of anyone who isn't a captive to the necessity of earning a living.

The nobility of earlier times, who weren't captive to the necessity to earn a living, often went out and did so, anyways. They did it out of a feeling of obligation and an earnest desire to make the world a better place.

Decide what you like about where your energy will be expended. I remember that you were always a student; you have always explored. That is all very good, but what is your understanding spared FOR when everything you have learned will die with you? As a teacher, you were at least able to pass on something of what was in your head to others. NOW where will it go? Just asking the question ...

I have a small carved memento mori. I've had it for years and it's always been on my coffee table to prompt me. I think I must have passed some crisis point in my life, because it used to urge me forward to do more, to give more, to be a more productive citizen of the world. Now I look at it and I only anticipate the end of the struggle. I think that's why I am looking so closely at all this. I'm tired. I see that others are tired too, and the possibility of death doesn't carry the same significance for me or for them as it once did ...

[sooZen]

Well Cat...

The only way to change the world is to change oneself. You cannot hope to stop the wrongs you perceive by chastising those close to you who have found their own measure of peace.

Your uncle seems to be getting pleasure out of these novels he writes, even though they may never get published. Your Dad is enjoying his travels in family history. When you say "they're coasting" , why? Because they are not doing what you deem important? Hah! One can never know beforehand what will and will not be important in the grand scheme.

"Throw it away on hobbies"? I am sure that both of those men in your life work very hard at something that they have a passion and love for and why should you or anyone else tell them what is important or what they should be doing with their time? We never know when our time is up and in the interm, doing something we love creates love. What better thing is there to do? There was only one Mother Teresa or Joan of Arc or Ghandi and what they did, they did with passion and love...we should all spend our time doing what is passionate for us and quit comparing blades of grass to pine trees.

Peace,
SooZen

[mtmynd]

cat - i note that as i put on more years that the burden of spreading myself upon society is not as necessary as when my years were lighter. i beleive that is a natural evolution, one that narrows one's future to that of focusing on our final obligations to leave this life as complete as possible.

change in the world is ceaseless... whether we devote our lives to peace or whether we devote our lives to defense... it all ends in our soul leaving our bodies, with whatever we were 'put here' for left for others to accept or reject... who knows who will find our material remains important or not? most of what mankind has left behind has been swallowed up and shit out to nourish the next generation, if only as manure.. but life cannot survive without manure.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear Cat:


I intend, to answer your question, to make as much art today and every day as I can before I cease.

Whether that art is "promoted" or "recognized" is of little consequence to me.

I have always done this, and I taught school as an alternative to business, which I abhore and have little aptitude for and absolutely no inclination to undertake.

Contact with exceptional students ( like you) was gratifying. But I am fundamentally narcissistic. I want an audience, of course, but I also could be said to create for myself first.

I think that's what mtmynd and SooZen do also. Otherwise, all three of us would produce work that looked like Thomas Kinkade,

http://www.thomaskinkade.com/magi/servl ... omeServlet


a genuine abomination unto the Art Gods.

fondly,


--Z

[Dave The Dov]

Thomas Kinkade right up there with dogs playing poker and mall art.
_________________
schrom plant

[knip]

what on earth do you mean?


from his home page and the beautiful
Guiding Light painting:

The radiant sunset in THE GUIDING LIGHT, first in my Lights of Inspiration Series, is captured in a dramatic new panoramic format. Surely THE GUIDING LIGHT penetrates the swirling storms that sometimes clouds (sic) the horizon.

how can one not be inspired by that, improper grammar aside?

[hester_prynne]

I work with "Old People", it's my job, (and I love it.). I've worked with many an elder and not one really in my experience has been hopeless, although at first, I may have judged them to be hopeless, say if they are confined to bed, or unable to walk, or do much. Or maybe they only have a little while left to be alive and they know it.

What I usually find, (even in terminal cases) after I work with them for awhile, is that they seem to have outgrown being involved with hopelessness, or hopeless causes. Most just live fully, in a really minute by minute way, beyond it all. I love this place they have come to.

The woman I work for now thinks it's funny, how I get all into politics, how I despise Bush and get riled at injustices and oppression. And I love this energy she gives me back. She's not laughing in a mean way at all...she gets where I'm coming from, she's been there...... It's just that she, and other elders I have worked for, seem to have a deeper involvement/interest in the present moment, and how all consuming that in itself is or can be.....(Just earlier today, assisting with a simple change into a pair of cooler socks brought on a momentary and much appreciated paradise!)

(Course, then I get mad that more people don't see this fact about elderly people! Heh. See what I mean?)

The elderly I have worked for have helped my spirit so much that what I do for them seems small in comparison, and that includes wipin butt and all.

Kiss and hug an elder today and every day. Visit a resthome, and play cards, music, or read aloud, with one of the many elders there that have no one. Get to know them, their ripened simplicity is brilliant, and magic, and strong.
Hardly hopeless!

H

[WIREMAN]

ya made me remember back to my youth when I was a paperboy and delivered the newspaper to a retirement home, they'd have me in everyday and cookies, delicious. It was a beautiful time and experience for a 10 year old................

[abcrystcats]

Hester I really appreciated your post. What you are suggesting is that perhaps there is a phase beyond being tired -- something that is more of a simple acceptance of what is, rather than a struggle to achieve what can't be. I know what you mean. My great aunt, in her 90s, can get more appreciation out of one chocolate than I could probably get from a whole box of them, because she's right there, in the moment, not hustling towards the future. You've given me something to think about.

And yes, I will visit her again very soon.


Z -- I appreciate the honesty.

Soozen -- that's really what I was striving for here, an honest assessment of something, not necessarily an accusation or a fingerpointing.

I am no longer sure that I can have an influence on the world, and even if I could, I doubt that I'd want to. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said I was tired. I am. I just spent an entire year doing practically nothing. Just wandering aimlessly from one activity to another. Indulging my tastes and being me. I can't realistically criticize someone else for doing the same exact thing.

I don't know what is the right thing to do or be. I was brought up with a strict German work ethic. It's a struggle within myself -- do I indulge my personal tastes and preferences, or do I put those aside in favor of a more practical and altruistic approach?

In the meantime, I guess I would like it if people wouldn't try to deceive themselves about what they are actually doing.

I'll muddle through this one way or the other.