Having entered the latter half of my sixties, I view
each day as a bonus. People much younger become obituaries these days around me.
That awareness helps me to sober down in spite of the youthful rush of blood in
my indignant veins.
Age hasn’t withered my indignation
against injustice, fraudulence, and blatant human folly, much as I would like
to withdraw from the ringside and watch the pugilism from a balcony seat with
mellowed amusement. But my genes rage against my will. The one who warned me in
my folly-ridden youth to be wary of my (anyone’s, for that matter)
destiny-shaping character was farsighted. I failed to subdue the rages of my
veins. I still fail.
That’s how some people are, I console
myself.
So, at the crossroads of my sixties,
I confess to a dismal lack of emotional maturity that should rightfully belong
to my age. The problem is that the sociopolitical reality around me doesn’t
help anyway to soothe my nerves. On the contrary, that reality is almost
entirely responsible for my rages and outrages. My writing is an exercise in psychological
sublimation.
No, I’m not here to make any confession or seek any sympathy. I’m only responding to Blogchatter’s blog hop theme.
Age hasn’t inflicted my flexibility
with stiffness yet. I’m glad for that. Aches aren’t afflicting my energy. Health
checkups haven’t become a routine. Good going, right?
There’s more yet. I’ve realised that
masculinity is no longer about professional success or physical strength or
social dominance. I have faded into the little world of my home and am happy
there. I’m authentic. And that means a world to me – in a world that offers and
values spurious truths.
I don’t long for connections any
more. Nor do I fear isolation. My personal world has thinned into a quiet truth
which doesn’t long for echoes. The silence in my personal space has a music
that I love.
That music carries the cadences of
all the choices I made and those I failed to. It is punctured by the thorns of
the paths I took and the losses of those that I ignored for various reasons,
mostly personal inability. It has the melodies of both my failures and
triumphs. Alas, it also has the pains I inflicted on myself as well as others,
some avoidable and much inevitable.
Age has carried me beyond regrets towards understanding. I will arrive at tranquillity sooner rather than later, I hope. I only need to turn a deaf ear to the sound and fury out there.
Blogchatter’s Blog Hop wanted me to “use a treasured photograph as a
cue to explore what aging means” to me. There are too many of them in my ageing
albums. One’s enough here.
I have just entered the senior citizen's club. I am already a changed person. I am less negative, less cynical, more positive and more hopeful.
ReplyDeleteGreat. You belong to what Erik Erikson calls the fulfilled people who have conquered negativity with their "integrity". Erikson's integrity is a sense of satisfaction with life. In my personal life, in spite of many failures, I can say I wasn't a failure. But what really bothers me is what's happening outside. Well, I'm helpless with that! So some cynicism lingers or crops up.
DeleteI, too, am a member of the club and live one day at a time. I guess. Seniority has brought on a mellowness that was absent in my youth.
ReplyDeleteThat mellowness is sweet for the younger ones around you, I hope. That's probably one of the best things we can give them.
DeleteI will become a senior citizen in another six months. I am already afflicted by plenty of ailments and like you I too hope that I reach a place of tranquility and peace sooner rather than later. I would rather live a healthy life or meet my maker.
ReplyDeleteThe "tranquility" I mentioned in the post is not eternal rest, dear Jai. I don't believe in any other life at all. For me tranquility should descend in this life itself, like autumn shadows, like dew drops on green leaves, like the mist on the mountains...
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteA fine reflection. YAM xx
Thanks Yam.
DeleteI am in mid only, but as I sit introspecting and reflecting, I have changed a lot. I can feel the calmness, maturity, patience, and many more things. Inspiring post, maybe I too will write.
ReplyDeleteDo write. I'm sure you'll have much better ideas and feelings to convey.
DeleteI think it's better to rage in our current world. I worry about the complacent. They're okay with what's going on? That bothers me. A lot.
ReplyDeleteOf course, someone has to speak the truth to power.
DeleteNooooo. Nooooo. Wait. You are an admirer of Nietzche. His idea of the Superman and Eternal Recurrence are to be taken together. Fir that matter, Apollo and Dionysus. You are just at turn of your Youth. Sixties are the threshold of productivity. I have befriended snd tamed Diabetes Melitus II for the past 29 years. So too cholestrol and kidney stones. I have completed the Vth Sem of Law Exams. Becoming lawyer, at 67,just to straighten a bit the crooked timber that is new India... Let there be rage and fume... Signs of Life! Ram Jethmalani was in the Supreme Court, nearing 100.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to say I'm retiring from 'life'. I can't stop writing anyway. But the kind of hatred that I face sometimes from a section of readers does bother me.
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