And now we come to it, the pinpoint moment at which culture and society mandate a change of referent for me. For. Me. My entire being itches at the implication of it, ever rebuked and rejected.
Still, it arrives and will land like the last bit of lace dropping from the eye; my brain and the mind it mimics recognizing the truth that is the organic machine, the homeostatic process of hollowing that brings all life to eventual transmutation… on behalf of the future, naturally.
It still irks. The inertia of simultaneously wanting to do everything and being unable to do much of anything is like a sore tooth; throbbing in warning but mostly just trying to soothe itself.
The reality is, I’m very fortunate to have made it this far in life. I am auspiciously fortunate in having the treasures of care and compassion from any other, let alone more than one.
But it is often difficult not to feel that I have had a much more deterministic life than many. It is not an admission I enjoy, nor one that grants me any degree of respite. Many have endured worse and done better. And in that, even my ego must be silent in respect.
I am not so amazing as I like to think. Certainly not so much as some others seem to, definitely not to any cultural or societal standard of exceptionalism (whatever is left of that concept).
I arrived too earlier to see benefit of the medicine and science beginning to arise as neuroscience, epigenetics, and the rapid advancement of machine learning begin their inexorable path to convergence.
I can only trace the outlines and imagine. So I take my enjoyment in that instead.
I arrived too late to truly be part of the future building; sandwiched between generations that detest one another. It’s rather like being a third wheel in your own life… very odd. I think GenX gave up when we realized we couldn’t fight the might of consumerism while embedded in the system. So the trend of metropolitan abandonment is seen as a positive here.
I do not think the change required for humanity to survive can happen in the global system as currently operating. And I do not think any participant of the global system as currently operating is willing to care more for tomorrow than today.
I’m not entirely sure how we lost the concept in the mainstream. I know it is not very strong anywhere I look except at the intersection of academia, cosmology, and neuroscience.
Maybe this is the pattern we must become “de-habituated” from? How many times do we need to rise and fall as tribes before we can accept we are one tribe? One tribe who rises and falls as a species, together? As we watch population crash in the systems all around us, how can we continue to deny it? Why would we? It seems insanity.
I won’t get started on imaginings around the realities that an interactive planet create in my mind. Though how anyone could look at the reality of the observable universe, our solar system, our planet, and us within it and NOT understand how deeply embedded, intrinsically connected in this unfathomably infinite organic machine we know as “Life, The Universe, and Everything.”
It is comforting to know I am a part, not apart. But it is often frustrating to realize that the ‘partness’ of it all is as much chains as coherence or community.
Either way, I’m about to be “officially” old and I already do not like what I feel and see as those around me shift their definitions to accommodate more what I cannot be or do than what I can.
What an ignoble way to spend one’s final time alive… I’ve always thought it a horrible human shame and I fear nothing to date has demonstrated any reason to believe, feel, or think otherwise.
Little wonder history repeats, eh? The generational gap seems to be getting wider rather than narrower and that’s never a good sign in any species so far as I have read… how about you?
I think it kind of stinks that you have to keep reinventing yourself all your life. I’m finally happy with who I am, how I am, and mostly important, why I am. So yeah, I’ll pass on that “mandate”. I’m going back to the planet that supported me when nothing else did. And you know what? I’m looking forward to it.
Just because I can go the speed limit doesn’t mean I need to, and no one is going to pay me better than the relief I give myself. I am decided; I will no longer try to keep up with those who work so hard to leave me behind… and yes, I’m looking at you, tech industry. And I’m looking at you, companies who won’t hire over 40. And anyone else who makes it hard to stay connected unless you’re allowing yourself to be consumed.
I suppose that is the best part about becoming ‘old’ – no one expects you to be able to endure slicing yourself into parts just to keep a under-paying, over-working job… they just expect you to sit quietly in a room while your body and mind finish burning out.
Hah. I’ll not be doing that either. I’m not really sure what I’m doing next, but I can tell you one thing – it’s going to be on my terms or not at all. This is my time. I will enjoy it.
More soon™.