Father William

“You are old, Father William…” (look up the Lewis Carroll poem if you don’t know it.) It pretty well captures my outlook and that of many of my more sane friends .

Young people think a variety of things about their elders. It’s natural, we did the same thing years ago. In some ways they revere what we have done, they think we have accumulated wisdom and gained perspective. In other ways they know we are irrelevant, stubborn, and often irritating, not to mention completely out of touch. All true .

But the key – as in the poem – is silliness. Elders can hardly take the future seriously (those of us who do so are the worst enemies of civilization.) Old people should be irrelevant to everyone but their immediate family. Our knowledge is vast and hard won, but hardly applicable to various modern crises. We enjoy our personal shell and bubble, but are well aware of how fragile it is. It won’t last very long …

So Father William jokes a lot and seems out of touch and a little sly. And yet – my days are joyful and my worries more immediate than they used to be. I think that attitude is appropriate for my age. But, of course, I would think so.

Conventional

I consider myself fortunate to have led a fairly conventional life. By that, meaning to have fit in, done well enough, a little ecstasy, not too much heartbreak. Accepting of most of the rules and tradition of society .

Conventional connotates the core of a civilization, even in its various groups. What the conventional peasants do, what the conventional rulers might direct. The basic conservative principle that keeps tribes from falling apart, and which helps individuals support each other to face the world .

Lately, conventional has also come to mean fashionably correct within a given cult. Conventional leftists, apparently, are all snowflakes who think the world should be cotton candy sweet. Conventional right, on the other hand, believe bitter harshness is the only survival skill in a hostile universe .

The center that I thought I inhabited has apparently melted away. It’s too boring for the young and restless, too naive for the old and cynical. Nobody wants to just try to improve things little by little – time to tear it all up and start over .

Perhaps the fringe fanatics are right. I think not, but none of them (nor anybody else) cares what I think. So I sit in my conventional backyard and, as Voltaire would say, concentrate on growing my equivalent of vegetables .

Ghosts

As I stroll through this cold, wet spring, I notice wild garlic sprouting, roadside daffodils in bloom, lawns greening, and trees laden with buds. But amidst all this rebirth, I am surrounded by ghosts .

Oh, not so much people, although there are a few of those, some dead, some merely gone away, others changed. I here speak of the ghosts of things and situations passed – dead trees removed, houses decayed or rebuilt, shorelines mutated, and on and on. I remember also who I was those other times, a person with sharper attributes and stronger drives, inhabiting a truly different world. Those ancient images overlay all that I actually experience now, and they sometimes haunt me .

Enchantment remains, the moments are wonderful. The memories are simply depth. This spring is a lovely time, the universe is infinitely, fractally magnificent. And yet …

The actual recollections are quite vivid, and on occasion it feels like that world was better, once upon a time, not so long ago. It even occasionally feels wrong to replace the old visions with fresh overlays .

Then I snap out of it, enjoy the sunshine breeze, and glory in simply and happily existing well. Ghosts and all .

Bavarian Daffodils

Once again daffodils are blooming in Huntington. As I am sure they did in the spring of 1938 in England and Bavaria. No doubt folks as old as I am tottered out of their cabins and admired the sight, dreaming of warmth and summer gardens .

There is, of course, always trouble in an unknown future. People mostly stay sane by ignoring the possibilities and concentrating on the exact day in the immediate neighborhood. Events just move along and we deal with them as best we can when and if they impact us .

I imagine that like today some people had strong resentments based on old horrors and current difficulties. Some yelled loudly. Some hoped things would work out. Few 78-year-olds thought they had much say in how the world was run .

The daffodils bloomed again a few years later, in spite of bombs and tanks. But life had changed drastically for most of the old folks who gazed at them fondly in that final spring of relative calm .

Well, I also go out and admire the daffodils. I touch the internet gingerly. I’m afraid I strenuously avoid thinking about possible futures .

It is not a good time to dream of what may come. Anyway for now, after the daffodils, surely the roses .

Relaxed Art

Off and on through the years, I have sketched and painted seriously. As many people have discovered, art (or serious craft) can be magical. There is a wonderful sense of accomplishment and a re-enchantment with the world .

Decoration has served many purposes throughout the ages, and I am not one to judge degrees of worth. These days of abundance surround us with inexpensive beautiful artifacts, often in limitless quantities, turned out by machines. A miracle in itself, also enriching our lives .

Now Joan and I participate in an art group, and I have reason to contemplate what I am doing, why I want to do it, where I want to take it. I’ve always tended to be hasty and immersive – I like to totally “lose myself” in what I am doing for as long as necessary. I rarely linger over detailed cleanup after the trance fades .

I cultivate the exploitation of my enthusiasm, my limitations, my ambitions, my competence. I do not try to outdo the machines. I find little joy in reproducing machine work. I don’t like working off photographs – too much detail, two little focus, and often artificial viewpoint .

Creating as a child. Others have their own ways and their own valuations. We all are expanded by doing something active .

Digital Dizzy

Digital technology surrounds us, and becomes more immersive by the day. As a person who had a (relatively) happy career programming computers in the good old days (ie until 2010 or so), I should enjoy the advances.

Besides it’s silly to rant against so useful a tool. Might as well claim walking is better than one of those newfangled wheeled contraptions, memory is ruined by written words, or the pride of John Henry is lost to steam machinery. Digital aids are very useful .

I guess my main concern – outside of how radically they are changing society – is their fragile nature. An awful lot of things can make them fail in minor or catastrophic ways.

“Oh come on!” you yell – organic stuff, including especially people, fails all the time. Makes mistakes, dies. That is quite true .

The difference is that life is based on dealing with the unexpected. Organisms have embedded feedback and repair systems that work remarkably well. Adjustments to changing environments usually happen. Life seems almost impossible to create from scratch, but once started it is very hard to stop. Even people are tougher than we usually think .

But digital technology? Especially remote centralized AI? I wonder if it is too much, too soon, and all eggs in one fragile, dizzy basket .

Legacy

Before writing, humans seem to have existed in almost perpetual ” dreamtime”. There was today, tomorrow, yesterday – and awareness of seasons. But the idea of long time was irrelevant. The world was and is as it always is and was .

Writing gradually evoked a sense of time, a knowledge of change. Rulers followed known rulers. Cities waxed and waned. Heroes might be remembered for a while.

Eventually civilizations got used to the idea that all would be judged somehow in and by eternity. It might be gods, or universal spirits, or culture or history, or simply some limited posterity. That would be preserved forever as a slice of eternity. Such gave meaning to life.

The subsequent loss of really long time perspective created one of the profoundly deep and usually submerged sicknesses of our culture. An engulfing pessimistic nihilism overlays our actions. The gods have dissipated into geologic eons. Nothing – not even the sun – remains forever. No judges, no long-term legacy. Only the insane believe that what they do or do not do matters at all in the long run .

In fact, we need to adjust to this new mental reality of inhabiting dreamtime once more. What we do is what we do now. We can remember our past, in the future we can remain proud of those recent achievements, we can strive so we have happier future memories.

“Legacy” is currently reserved for use by charlatans and others seeking any way to gain or maintain immediate power .

New Amish

It is well known that we establish certain likes or dislikes at definite ages. Boys center on sports attachments around 10 or 11. People tend to enjoy the music of teenage years as long as they live. It is, of course, possible to change, but there can be a lot of resistance .

Cultures too have some of that stickiness. Religions are long-lasting but centered on origins. Nation states have a definite point of origin and tradition. And then we have social cults like the Amish.

As far as I can tell – I’m too lazy to investigate on Google – the Amish basically picked a date around 1880 as “thus far and no further”. Anything invented before that, fine and dandy. After that – just frivolous garbage .

We may laugh at the arbitrariness of the cutoff, seemingly picked at random without much real logic involved. Yet I have found myself doing the same thing. An old “neo Amish” gentleman. The “new stuff” is “stupid and irrelevant” and just makes me crazy. Current music, film, food, fads – I ignore them all. I froze my electronic usage about 10 or 15 years ago. I like older books. And I don’t care – let the wider world go down its own devil’s route .

A complete curmudgeon. I still enjoy complaining with my peers. But I float along in my neo Amish nostalgia, content with the memories in my own life. And all the things that I accept as necessary. From that personal arbitrary cut off point years ago.

Consolations of Continuity

Boethius wrote his enduring classic Consolations of Philosophy after he had been condemned to death by his Roman emperor. A sad story, we think, but with a smug twinge of admiration at his accomplishment at a difficult time.

Like the rest of us, Boethius was mortal. Like the rest of us, condemned to death sooner or later. For us elders, of course, it’s sooner. We may have less time to do anything then Boethius. We may have far less chance of producing anything significant. He was after all in the literate elite of Rome – a tiny fraction of a powerful population. We inhabit a world of 8 billion, all of them equally literate (or illiterate) on social media .

I suspect from all the chatter, few classics will emerge, let alone endure for thousands of years .

So my attempts in the face of fate have been reduced to revisiting my life, producing a stream of continuity – in words and artifacts, memories and conversations and even hidden thoughts. Directed at me. A consolation, if only for an hour, or late at night. Recall of a thread of being, meaningful in spite of its cosmic insignificance .

A philosophy? I guess. At this point, I’m happy to discover and utilize anything that increases my enchantment with existence. A busy pen, a happy mind .

Grandpa’s Keys

In a patriarchal society, Grandpa can be revered or feared, cherished or abandoned. By virtue of years, he has often accumulated property, power, and moral leadership. Arguing with the paterfamilias usually brings trouble.

These days, Grandpa is increasingly elderly. Folks used to die off before their late ’60s. Now they may hang on indefinitely. Their brains can be sharp but more rigid, their various bodily functions less youthful, agility impaired. Desires remain, reflexes deteriorate, judgments are suspect . And technology multiplies their power.

At some point, the car keys that Grandpa has used to drive everywhere all his life must be – sometimes forcibly – taken away. Hopefully before a terrible accident.

That is right, logical, even compassionate. But the old guy resents it. Maybe screams. Maybe sulks. Maybe uses his property and power to punish. There is often no easy or happy way to do so.

There are worse consequences of longer lifespan. Our geriatric leaders are a good example. In many ways, they have come to resemble a decrepit superhero, full of old power, confused and dangerous. Our society however, is unable to restrain his impulsive behavior as he cruises along in the batmobile .