I'm going to grow old. And then I will die.
I've always known this fact, of course, and that it seems so much more pressing now than it seemed a year ago will seem odd to most people, as I'm in the height of my youth. I can only respond that, having to for the first time really take stock of my future, with graduation impending, all times after I leave school seem equidistant. Imagining myself at 40, 50, 70 is much easier than it once was, and all ages are equally easy.
I'm terrified, as, I suppose, we all are. First my looks will go, then my intelligence, then my strength of character, and eventually I will be left with none of the traits which I love myself for right now.
Actual death doesn't seem so bad, in comparison. Lucretius' argument makes some sense, at least. Non-existence was not so bad in the billions of years before I was born; I doubt it will be too bad in the billions of years hence. Fear of oblivion is irrational; there is no you anymore to fear any negative consequence.
Achilles' decision is looking more and more rational. A short glorious life may be kinder, if more cowardly, than having to face steady degeneration.
I know, of course, that such fears are uncharitable, and unloving. If I so desperately wish to remain young, I can't very well respect or love the old. If I fear that age will make me unlovable, I must already view the elderly people in my life with contempt. Humanae Vitae, nevermind its retrograde politics, begins to make a good deal more sense. If I am to love my 70-year old self, I must learn to appreciate the virtues of age.
More than anything else, this bit of wisdom I received from my mom has helped me: each age has its own joys. Certainly those of being 55 are different than those of being 21, but they are both worthwhile. I'll probably never bring as much enthusiasm to a television show as I did with Digimon when I was thirteen, and probably no sexual experience will ever match my first time when I was nineteen. Even so, I wouldn't trade the increased self-awareness and self-acceptance I've gained with age for the enthusiasm I had back then, nor would most middle aged people, from what I understand. It's difficult to accept that what is important to me right now won't always be so, and even more difficult to accept that I'm going to have to carve out new niches for myself to figure out how to do what is important to me at each new stage in my life. But there is hope that, as the joys I invest myself in so deeply right now become impossible, new ones will become possible.
There's only one wrinkle. I'm not exactly sure what the joys of being 30 will look like, but I have a difficult time imagining myself enjoying them. Us deviants can enjoy the shallow cares of youth, but we will soon find our hedonistic joys turn to ash in our mouth with the passing of time, as our more respectable peers enter the adult worlds of parenthood and career and we are left to compete with the new generation in a self-destructive cycle. So it seems to me in my darkest moments when I buy the culture's messaging about who I am.
I know that those things are irrational self-loathing, but even so I have to own that I feel adrift where it comes to my future. Even were those options available to me, I can't see myself following the respectable options of a white-collar career with a family, 2.5 kids, and a house in the suburbs.
What exactly life has to offer to me other than that, I don't know. It once seemed like a grand adventure, that I would have to forge my own path. Now on the cusp, it seems much more daunting a task.
Even so, I wouldn't trade the opportunity to try for the world.
1 comment:
I'm in my early 50s. So far, so good -- yes, there are advantages to not being completely young; for one thing, I'm much harder to intimidate and I've learned some skills that I might have learned earlier, but didn't, and that make life easier and better.
At the same time -- yes, time's winged chariot OH BOY. Just as one small drag, I can't kneel comfortably on the floor, even with a pillow, which is a bummer for a sub. And I observe how people in their 70s and 80s seem to become socially invisible, partly as a result of younger people's horror of aging and partly because, well, so many older people allow themselves to fossilize. (If you read the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani pontificating last Sunday about the cognitive horrors of Teh Interwebs, case in point.)
I've found some help in reading books by old people who have remained intellectually and socially vigorous and in bearing in mind the option to end my own life if I decide that I've had enough time. But, yeah, cold comfort.
One thing that may be a little cheering: though I would've found it hard, at 20, to imagine having hot sex at 50, in fact sex now is explosively hot, thanks to years and years of trust and vulnerability and practice. So hey! There's that to look forward to.
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