As I get older, I realize the implications of what that brings. Aches and pains become more of a constant thing to deal with. People that looked at you before now stare past you. Your world view becomes more narrowly focused: Either you become more conservative or more liberal.
Sitting down, I take note of a pain in my ribs and instead of relagating it to the back of my mind without a thought, I entertain the possibility of something more ominous. Is it a sign of cancer? Is there something else wrong? Is it another thing breaking down within me? My attention to such matters becomes more acute. Things which never bothered me before become a more constant companion. A change in humidity or temperature I notice when my wrists become painful, or my shoulder, or neck, or back. When I never thought twice about how hard I exercised, now attention to my heart rate has to be be paramount among my concerns. I injure much more easily and instead of my body being fine in a day, it now takes weeks and sometimes months.
At the same time that I look forward to my boys growing up, I also know that brings with it the realization that I'm that much older, and with it age imposes stronger restrictions. Will I be able to enjoy life as fully? Will my ways be so set that I won't have the will to travel or do things as I wish now and look forward to in the future, which helps me deal with present restrictions?
As I get older, I think more and more about all the famous writers and leaders of the past. It didn't matter how famous they became or how great they were as persons, they're dead as much as a bum on meth. They're all gone. None are left and none will ever be left. Shortly after I'm gone I'll be naught but a whisper in the wind; utterly forgotten. I'll exist only in shortening memories, in short scenes, and all my proud stamping and braying will have amounted to willowy smoke, and then gone. It's difficult to find meaning when this is the hard reality. There is nothing beautiful about it. Those that brush it aside or wax poetic about it delude and mislead. In the end, saying it was a beautiful end or that this person or that lived a full life is only consolation for the living. In the end we are returned to absolute darkness and endless silence; alone forever.
Burning and burying serves only the living. It allows the living to go on; to start the process of forgetting. Perhaps our ancestors better honored the dead by displaying them and keeping them close. There were some tribes that kept their dead in a room in the house, or in a common crypt. Modern "sensibilities" decry such behavior as 'barbaric' or in some way inhumane. I find this ironically false in the extreme. Instead, we burn them into ashes or bury them in the ground. "Where is uncle David?". "Oh, he's on the other side of the country in a cemetery. Can't remember the name of it now. We moved."
I have a grandmother buried in Connecticut, one buried in Indiana down by Indianapolis, a sister buried in Fort Wayne, a step-father buried in Nova Scotia, a grandfather buried in Oklahoma, and the list goes on. There is no family plot. There is no strong connection to the past as past generations had.
Aging. Aging is allowing someone to become nobody. Aging is forgetting. Aging is a steady march to death and the extinguished flame of hopes, dreams, aspirations, loves... everything. Aging is a colony of lemmings walking wilfully off the cliff.
Sitting down, I take note of a pain in my ribs and instead of relagating it to the back of my mind without a thought, I entertain the possibility of something more ominous. Is it a sign of cancer? Is there something else wrong? Is it another thing breaking down within me? My attention to such matters becomes more acute. Things which never bothered me before become a more constant companion. A change in humidity or temperature I notice when my wrists become painful, or my shoulder, or neck, or back. When I never thought twice about how hard I exercised, now attention to my heart rate has to be be paramount among my concerns. I injure much more easily and instead of my body being fine in a day, it now takes weeks and sometimes months.
At the same time that I look forward to my boys growing up, I also know that brings with it the realization that I'm that much older, and with it age imposes stronger restrictions. Will I be able to enjoy life as fully? Will my ways be so set that I won't have the will to travel or do things as I wish now and look forward to in the future, which helps me deal with present restrictions?
As I get older, I think more and more about all the famous writers and leaders of the past. It didn't matter how famous they became or how great they were as persons, they're dead as much as a bum on meth. They're all gone. None are left and none will ever be left. Shortly after I'm gone I'll be naught but a whisper in the wind; utterly forgotten. I'll exist only in shortening memories, in short scenes, and all my proud stamping and braying will have amounted to willowy smoke, and then gone. It's difficult to find meaning when this is the hard reality. There is nothing beautiful about it. Those that brush it aside or wax poetic about it delude and mislead. In the end, saying it was a beautiful end or that this person or that lived a full life is only consolation for the living. In the end we are returned to absolute darkness and endless silence; alone forever.
Burning and burying serves only the living. It allows the living to go on; to start the process of forgetting. Perhaps our ancestors better honored the dead by displaying them and keeping them close. There were some tribes that kept their dead in a room in the house, or in a common crypt. Modern "sensibilities" decry such behavior as 'barbaric' or in some way inhumane. I find this ironically false in the extreme. Instead, we burn them into ashes or bury them in the ground. "Where is uncle David?". "Oh, he's on the other side of the country in a cemetery. Can't remember the name of it now. We moved."
I have a grandmother buried in Connecticut, one buried in Indiana down by Indianapolis, a sister buried in Fort Wayne, a step-father buried in Nova Scotia, a grandfather buried in Oklahoma, and the list goes on. There is no family plot. There is no strong connection to the past as past generations had.
Aging. Aging is allowing someone to become nobody. Aging is forgetting. Aging is a steady march to death and the extinguished flame of hopes, dreams, aspirations, loves... everything. Aging is a colony of lemmings walking wilfully off the cliff.
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