Tuesday 29 September 2015

THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE...



There's a time in every young person's life when they assume, without ever really thinking about it, that they're not only invincible, but also immortal.  Usually it's around the teenage years and early 20s when we labour under this delusion, and I have to confess that I was no exception.  When we're young, we think we're going to be young forever, and old age and death seem so distant as to be unimaginable.  Then one day we wake up and realise that, not only are we 'over the hill', we're also actually halfway down the other side and somebody has cut the brakes.  What's more, we don't even recall getting to the top of that hill to begin with.  Shouldn't we at least remember the view?

When we're young the world is ours for the taking, and everything seems geared towards us and runs in perfect synchronicity with the pace of our lives.  Then, one day, it dawns on us that we're no longer participants in life's race, but merely observers, sitting on the sidelines, watching younger people revelling in a world that appears to have been created exclusively for them.  How one can be relegated to the benches without being aware of when it happened is a bit of a mystery, but trust me, that's the way things go.

Now, believe me when I say that I'm not the kind of person who revels in anyone's death, but I sometimes wonder if younger people's untimely expiration is Nature's way of reassuring us 'oldies' that being young isn't necessarily an indication of being accorded favoured status, and that, young or old, we're all equally subject to termination at short (or even no) notice.  If being 20 is no guarantee we'll reach 50, then perhaps 50-year-olds shouldn't feel so threatened by the passage of time as they do.  Life's a lottery and our numbers can come up at any moment.  Not quite a 'lucky dip' - but you get the point, I'm sure.

I feel that I should somehow find the above notion reassuring, but for some reason I remain unconvinced.  How about you?

******

Harvest Gate

                                 I lingered by a gate a little while
                                 and watched some children play in fields of green.
                                 Their joyous voices gave me cause to smile
                                 and filled my troubled soul with thoughts serene.

                                 If only I could once again be young
                                 and join them in their happy escapades,
                                 then all my years would be a song well-sung
                                 and I could claim I've lived my life in spades.

                                 But as I leave the gate, my mood turns low,
                                 the chills of age envelop my frail frame.
                                 I know I haven't very long to go
                                 'til he who wields the sickle calls my name.

                                 But I have lived and loved, both lost and won,
                                 and now the course of my life's race is run.

(Iain Osborne.)
   

4 comments:

  1. My sister died aged 19 when I was 22 so any youthful illusions about immortality were shattered forever by that event which is still capable of bringing me to tears 27 years later. I'm sure my parents never really got over it - how do you "get over" the death of your child anyway ? But I think it totally changed my outlook and I became quite fatalistic - life is transitory and death is always near. It's often said that modern society hides death away - only old people die and death is confined to hospitals and hospices and it's certainly true that there seems to be an obsession with youth culture even though we live in an ageing society (by 2050 at least a quarter of the UK population will be over 65, maybe closer to 30%). As for my own demise - I've reached a stage of life where all my closest relatives are gone so I feel like I've "done my duty" towards them and I've got no children or dependents to leave behind which is hugely liberating to be honest. When death comes for me I feel like I can say "Okay, I've had my time, I've done everything I could realistically expect to do and I'm ready to go".

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  2. Curiously, I'm not getting email alerts for this blog, CJ, which is why I take a bit of time to answer comments. I'm the opposite from you - I want to live forever, and when Death comes for me, I'm going to haggle for some more time. Or maybe I'll get to race him like in The Man Who Outdistanced Death - in which case I'm done for 'cos I can run none.

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  3. "Do not go gentle into that good night - rage, rage against the dying of the light". I'm not saying I want to go tomorrow, Kid, but when it comes I'll shrug my shoulders and I won't rage against the dying of the light. I do feel though that modern society has become obsessed with keeping people alive - terminally ill patients are forced to suffer to the bitter end and NHS hospitals are clogged with barely alive geriatrics who'd be better off dead. And it's only going to get worse as the population ages.

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  4. I think you'd be surprised at how often old people aren't 'resuscitated' when they could be, CJ. I had a friend whose mother had a stroke, and the hospital were quite prepared to let her slip away. It was her family who insisted on her being kept alive, and she wasn't far off being a vegetable for her remaining few years.

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