To theorize is to place oneself outside of time. The instinct or impulse is a deep one. To arrest the flow with our constructions, physical or mental. Or the desire for eternal youth or the sense of the loss of an irretrievable golden age. A painting, a photograph, to capture the moment, still life.
And yet, and yet, we live in time; time lives through us. Perhaps not just in time but...
There is something absolutely heart-breaking when you lose a student (as we did this week). A twenty-one year old young woman from leukemia.
And here we are, with our illusions of independence and invulnerability. Rational man, oblivious of the frailty of the body, blissfully unaware of the fact that he needs other people to converse with. Time as a space that opens up the possibility of fulfillment but also a series of erasures. The slowing down, the forgetfulness, the hesitations and stumbling. Our backs curve, as if we were withdrawing from the world, trying to protect ourselves (as a child does when he sleeps). This ancient process down in our bones...the old drift of the world taking us with it. Drift..drift, there are no anchors (Bronk). For the love of God.
I see it now-the world is swiftly passing.
Technological changes mean that knowledge can be stored; the sayings and experiences of an old man, embodied in old speech patterns, gestures, shapes of the body, become ever-more redundant. But more than that: because technology and the world has changed so much it's not clear if the old man's experiences matter that much. What can they explain to us, after all? They speak, if at all, from a bygone era whose sensibilities and assumptions do not resonate with ours. Fundamental human truths? In a relativistic age, really?
Do we think old people can provide us with security, reassurance, understanding. We have the state and its insurance mechanisms for that. Knowledge, blanket and assets provided. Sign here.
Also, we don't want to be reminded of our dependency on care. In a time that promotes not just youth but the independent self old age is nothing but a terrible restriction on our mobility and freedom. To be alive is to be able to get up and go. We think we can live forever or, alternatively, that the self is nothing but a series of fragmentary episodes, without any enduring identity or sense of continuity. Time doesn't lead to any deepening of the self any more, which is another reason why old age is useless, another reason why you have a seventy-year old President who is basically still a teenager, another reason why many of your friends feel the need to marry (or have a fling with) much younger women.
Your mind is getting slower; you'd like to believe that you're growing in wisdom but if truth be told the mere passage of time does not automatically confer on you a greater sense of awareness or understanding. Less light gets to you, your reaction time has faltered. You can fail to recognize people (not without humorous and pleasant consequences..like the way you hugged a woman who you thought was an old friend only to realize it was someone completely different!).
What to hold on to, when to let go? Your thought can get stuck in a groove for longer, sleep patterns are more disturbed than usual (in London you slept in pitch darkness, with perfect calmness, like a horse that's been flogged to death).
And yet, and yet, we live in time; time lives through us. Perhaps not just in time but...
There is something absolutely heart-breaking when you lose a student (as we did this week). A twenty-one year old young woman from leukemia.
And here we are, with our illusions of independence and invulnerability. Rational man, oblivious of the frailty of the body, blissfully unaware of the fact that he needs other people to converse with. Time as a space that opens up the possibility of fulfillment but also a series of erasures. The slowing down, the forgetfulness, the hesitations and stumbling. Our backs curve, as if we were withdrawing from the world, trying to protect ourselves (as a child does when he sleeps). This ancient process down in our bones...the old drift of the world taking us with it. Drift..drift, there are no anchors (Bronk). For the love of God.
I see it now-the world is swiftly passing.
Technological changes mean that knowledge can be stored; the sayings and experiences of an old man, embodied in old speech patterns, gestures, shapes of the body, become ever-more redundant. But more than that: because technology and the world has changed so much it's not clear if the old man's experiences matter that much. What can they explain to us, after all? They speak, if at all, from a bygone era whose sensibilities and assumptions do not resonate with ours. Fundamental human truths? In a relativistic age, really?
Do we think old people can provide us with security, reassurance, understanding. We have the state and its insurance mechanisms for that. Knowledge, blanket and assets provided. Sign here.
Also, we don't want to be reminded of our dependency on care. In a time that promotes not just youth but the independent self old age is nothing but a terrible restriction on our mobility and freedom. To be alive is to be able to get up and go. We think we can live forever or, alternatively, that the self is nothing but a series of fragmentary episodes, without any enduring identity or sense of continuity. Time doesn't lead to any deepening of the self any more, which is another reason why old age is useless, another reason why you have a seventy-year old President who is basically still a teenager, another reason why many of your friends feel the need to marry (or have a fling with) much younger women.
Your mind is getting slower; you'd like to believe that you're growing in wisdom but if truth be told the mere passage of time does not automatically confer on you a greater sense of awareness or understanding. Less light gets to you, your reaction time has faltered. You can fail to recognize people (not without humorous and pleasant consequences..like the way you hugged a woman who you thought was an old friend only to realize it was someone completely different!).
What to hold on to, when to let go? Your thought can get stuck in a groove for longer, sleep patterns are more disturbed than usual (in London you slept in pitch darkness, with perfect calmness, like a horse that's been flogged to death).
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