Thoughts on Aging, Elections, and Space-time
“Leave your front door and your back door open,
allow your thoughts to come and go,
just don’t serve them tea”
-Shunryo Suzuki
A few thoughts as I close in on 66 years of shuffling across this mortal coil.
On Memories and Persistent Illusions
“Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record.”
― Andre Maurois
I’ve read that Einstein’s theory of special relativity implies the past, present, and future coexist simultaneously in space-time. Of course, my understanding of Einsteinian relativity is hopelessly pedestrian. An intriguing idea, nonetheless. All that has happened, is happening, and will happen exists, always.
After his friend Michele Besso died, Einstein wrote a letter to his family. In it, he said:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
The older I get, the more I understand how much our perception relies on a persistent illusion, lest we lose our way in an incomprehensible universe. We move through time and are timeless, just the same.
As the years press on, the memories coalesce. Sometimes, in my search for sleep while shedding the day’s travails, dormant memories spring to life of times long past and forgotten. There, in the dark quiet of a town fast asleep, the past alloys with the present, forging a life narrative — the good, the bad, the ugly. Ah, the stories I could tell, the ones I always tell, and the ones I dare not. At least as I remember them, decades and lifetimes ago.
On November Birthdays and Presidential Elections
“Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
―President John Adams
In 2016, election night was November 8, my 58th birthday. 58! Still a pre-60 youngster. I remember looking forward to not having to hear about or listen to Donald Trump anymore.
It’s now 2024. Another presidential election near my birthday, only this time I’m older but wiser. Right?
Just a couple of days ago, I was ready, at long, sweet last, to finally see accountability for a former president’s misdeeds and malignant character.
But no. I must become even sadder but, apparently, no wiser.
I’m getting tired of this.
If this pattern continues, I will advocate moving the election until after my birthday. Then, I might at least maintain naive hope for the world as I tick off another year.
On Turning 66
“Old age is the most unexpected things that happen to a man.”
―Leon Trotsky
Sixty-six may not be “old,” exactly, but it certainly isn’t young. Stretching “middle age” past 64 is delusional. Once you’ve got Medicare, you’ve left the shores of middle age and set out on the sea of what comes next, which, I guess, is “old age.”
And yes. Though I saw it coming, it arrives unexpectedly. Or it will. When I’m old.
“May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,
May hope forever wipe away your tears,
And, above all,
May silence make you strong.”
- Chief Dan George
