Having survived the Winter Solstice, and having this morning awoken with
anticipation to our first full day in the condo on the beach, I commence
settling into the not unwelcome routine of vacation. This year is especially noteworthy for me not
only because I carry on rejoicing in the generosity of the past month but also
because I mark a point of departure. Apart
from recent commercial attainments (long-awaited conditions precedent to moving
forward), it is equally important to me that I have attained the age of 65
years, a milestone which I view as a landmark in my life. Why it should be so I am not entirely
certain, but nonetheless the event marks for me no less than a time for
contemplation and personal rejuvenation.
I am philosophically aware that in life there is neither a past nor a
future, only the present, yet I am haunted by both the past and the
future. In an attempt to foil the drama
of either I hope to capitalize upon the present. This exacts among other things recognition of
what it is about the present that draws me and making the most of it (if for no
other reason than that time is running out).
In my present circumstances this is a calling happily to be desired as
there is so much about the present for which I am thankful and in which I am
delighted to regale. Without being smug about it, the present represents for me
the culmination of what has been years in the making. I won’t tarnish the
sentiment by repeating such trite observations as “I have worked hard and I
deserve it”, something I suspect everybody can say in spite of the pinnacle of
achievement they might or not have reached.
I firmly believe that whoever you are life is by and large hard and that
it is only luck which distinguishes one’s prosperity from that of another. Lest one be persuaded to come flying to the support
of those who “keep their nose to the grindstone” I remind you that there are so
many intervening trials in life which have nothing whatever to do with
commitment to one’s private avocation and which can in an instant derail what
might otherwise have been a trajectory of fame and fortune.
I therefore confine my revelations to acknowledgment of my luck and the
perhaps instinctive contrition to feel grateful for it. Although life is a
thankless taskmaster and neither requires nor expects anything in return (so
much for appeasement of the gods) I even so feel an obligation to behave other
than rapaciously. As a matter of pure
logic it makes sense to approach one’s maturity with a degree of wisdom and
this naturally summons the attributes of intellectual and emotional superiority,
among them patience, moderation, understanding, etc. Too often in the past I have tossed these
qualities overboard as so much unnecessary baggage, sometimes as a dilution of
life’s treasures, at other times as a token accession to ephemeral gentility,
sometimes as the product of blunt ignorance and nearsightedness. The result of the more reasoned governance is
a muting of spontaneity, a reaction to life retarded by second-thoughts and
retrospection. My days of impulsiveness
are all but exhausted and I view restraint as small accommodation. I venture to say as well that the mining of
life’s reserves may indeed require refinement as one transforms into old age.
Regrettably I acknowledge that my contemporary bliss is the very product
of the luck to which I have eluded and has little to do with any new-found
brainpower or higher purpose. I know
also that such elation is easily battered. I can only hope that my old-style
hastiness will be trumped by having raised my sights. Yet I know from experience that it takes as
little as a seemingly innocuous comment (“Have you got a hankerin’?”) to put me
over the edge in an instant. All my high
resolution can dissolve in a jiffy when I gleefully imagine the immediate
gratification of my cravings. I am
however reminded: “You only turn 65 once!” My historical reason for servicing
my so-called needs was in fact a cheap effort to smother my anxieties about the
past and the future. Those anxieties
were really nothing more or less than a perpetual obsession with fulfilling my
duties of performance, the pressing obligation I have felt since I was a
student to do my best and later in life to fulfill my professional
responsibilities. It wasn’t so much the
burden of those tasks which weighed me down as the relentlessness of them. I
may be deceiving myself to think there can ever be a sustained change but for
the time being at least I charm myself to believe that my days in harness are
virtually over whether by design or as a mere accident of aging.
Life has become more a science and less a romance. This is not to suggest that life is no longer
an adventure, only that its exhilaration is prompted more by reason than
passion. I take the view that turning 65
years of age is as good a time as any to launch myself along a new course. It isn’t a matter of disregard of what one
already has or anything as frantic as moving house or changing acquaintances
but rather simply adopting a new perspective, scholarship vs desire. What is critical about the timing is that the
opportunity will only be afforded once, the opportunity to make an irreversible
decision. Of course nothing is
irreversible and likely there is nothing especially magical about any point in
time. Yet it is to be acknowledged that
a point in time may nonetheless have significance. It requires a capitulation,
an overthrow of the past and an espousal of the future. Turning back involves only needless and
tiresome repetition. Granted there are
the undeniable milestones – birth, life and death – but it is only I who can
create another. I suspect others have
attached importance to one date or another, some for good and some for bad. It gratifies me to think that I can create my
own new beginning and follow it through.
No comments:
Post a Comment