There was no good reason for this irrational belief. I wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol. I didn't have a life-threatening disease. I wasn't doing a dangerous job. I wasn't a reckless driver. I was perfectly healthy. Yet I was convinced I didn't have long for this world.
I think I secretly liked the idea of dying in my prime. A tragic and romantic end to a promising life. A prodigious talent snuffed out far too early. Well, in my case, not quite a prodigious talent, more like a few vague and useless abilities.
And now here I am at the age of 72, still very much alive, still perfectly healthy and set to live another decade or two. Jenny is sure I'll live to 100 at least. How did that happen? What guardian angel is keeping an eye on me?
I've lived to see Boris Johnson, the internet, the obesity epidemic, peace in Northern Ireland, Taylor Swift, climate collapse, ripped jeans and bankrupt banks. I've seen every grisly and brutal thing human beings are capable of. I've been round the block a few times, as they say.
I must say I don't feel as if I'm 72. I feel that a seventy something should be an enormous repository of wisdom, an expert on every subject, in which case I'm sadly lacking as I still seem to have the skimpy and unreliable knowledge of a thirty year old. Anyone coming to see me for some brilliant advice on their latest life crisis would be sadly disappointed. I can just about change a light bulb.
I'm still waiting for the prodigious talent to kick in.
I think we never know if we hold a repository of wise thoughts. Only others can answer that question and we only know if they come to us and bare their souls and ask us to reflect on what WE did in our time to shed some light on their dilemma.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me started on ripped jeans, missing sleeves, etc.
XO
WWW
www: True, other people's positive reactions may sometimes contradict our own unflattering image of ourselves.
DeleteI still see plenty of ripped jeans, but missing sleeves aren't a thing in Belfast.
While spending a lot of my life convinced I had a fatal illness I've now reached the point where I think I'll never die. I'm too young. Which explains why I'm also waiting for wisdom to hit.
ReplyDeleteLiz: Yes, I sometimes think, good grief, I could survive another 20 years. Do I really want to, with the state the world is in nowadays?
DeleteI think as we grow older, we are better able to see the big picture. So, not necessarily wiser, just better vision.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: "Not necessarily wiser, just better vision" That's very perceptive, that sums it up nicely. The same knowledge but in three dimensions rather than one.
DeleteWell, I'm glad you're still here. And I'm glad I found your blog on New Years Eve (day). I'll take it as a good omen, because I'm needing a good omen. I can relate to your death stuff, so maybe I too will live to at least 72. AND....Not only are you still living but your blog is as well. It's fairly rare, for me, these days to find active, living blogs...especially of ones that have subjects that interest me.
ReplyDeleteDina: This is an active, living blog all right. Though if I'd died at 30 this blog would never have existed....
DeleteChange a lightbulb? Only if not requiring a ladder. My days of dashing up and down these are long gone.
ReplyDeleteI think I might still make it to a barricade though...if someone else built it. And I remember my mother's wartime instructions on making a Molotov cocktail - with which they were supposed to deter German tanks - though I would need my glasses to do it...all is not lost.
Fly: I can still use a ladder, though with some trepidation. Ditto with the barricades and molotov cocktails - just tell me when they're ready and I'll mosey along.
DeleteMy comment could have been very different, had I not come up hard on Helen's. The only thing I too remain very good at is protest and insurrection. You have a good new year!
ReplyDeleteJoanne: I do support the odd bit of protest and insurrection, if there's something I care passionately about. Otherwise, I leave it to the hardened politicos.
DeleteThe term wisdom sounds way too pretentious for me -- I prefer the Buddhist concept of "beginner's mind." I recently turned 80 so now I'm officially a very old lady. That cracks me up.
ReplyDeleteJean: Goodness, congratulations on reaching your ninth decade! You're obviously still in pretty good shape both mentally and physically.
DeleteI also like the idea of beginner's mind and a lack of preconceptions in one's attitude to life.
Happy New Year, Nick - and I hope you have many more of them!
ReplyDeleteSxxx
Thanks, Ms Scarlet. I hope you have many more of them too.
DeleteI wish Ursula would come and lend us her thoughts on this!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year, Nick!
Happy New Year to you too, Kylie! Perhaps Ursula is still consolidating her thoughts on the subject....
DeleteHow well you know me, Nick. Sometimes I jump, feet first, into the comment box - sod the consequences. Other times the subject raised by the blogger in question does deserve some more lengthy reflection. Of the many edicts my father served at the dinner table was "think first, speak later". Which is fair advice. Alas, his thinking was so speedy he could hold whole sermons (monologues) without taking a breath. I learnt a lot during those interminable times. Not least how to think whilst keeping quiet.
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Ursula: I learnt the same sort of lesson from my own father. He would harangue us with some angry rant for 20 minutes, during which time the wisest course was to keep quiet until he ran out of steam.
DeleteAn "angry rant" is, of course, terrible.
DeleteMy own father, and to this day, just talks. Forever. He is a very interesting man, a thinker, extremely intelligent, with a classical education and ever inquisitive mind. According to my mother, of all his four children I was the only one who actually listened to him. Patiently. Absorbed. Like a sponge. The other three just glazed over. In one ear out of the other, excusing themselves from the table under any pretext. Whether that is completely true (about my siblings) I don't know though, of course, it does make a good anecdote.
U
Ursula: Sounds like he enjoyed talking but never asked anyone else for their opinions. In which case, it's not surprising your siblings made their excuses and left.
DeleteMy dad is 86 and he says he plans to be around for a while longer. He likes to walk up to people and ask them if he looks good for 86. lol I hope this year is a good one for you.
ReplyDeleteMary: Thanks. Perhaps I'll be doing the same as your dad when I'm 86!
DeleteWhen I was about 22, one total stranger accosted me on a footpath outside a library and told me that I was destined to die a violent and early death and simply walked away. I was quite stunned but, since then that encounter comes to me when I feel really unwell though quite how the violent part comes into play is not clear to me. I am now 76 and family and dear friends call me an old reprobate and despite some health issues am still going strong though I am ready to meet Father Time whenever he choses to come and meet me.
ReplyDeleteRamana: What a peculiar encounter! Sounds like some deranged person who simply wanted to frighten as many total strangers as possible. Well, as one old reprobate to another, Happy New Year!
DeleteWhat's it called, not least in Rock music circles? "The twenty seven club". There are an uncanny amount of examples who didn't make it to thirty. Kiss a tree, go to war, kill yourself.
ReplyDeleteI myself always thought that either I'd die before thirty - not by my own hand - or live forever. Forever it is. My doctor's blood pressure reading notwithstanding. I wish I'd never checked into A&E on one memorable occasion in May 2019 because of some minor blip to do with my vision (which, incidentally, is 20/20). Now a whole coterie of doctors are on my case, robbing me of peace of mind and blissful ignorance. And before you commiserate, Nick: I am fine, fit and fine. That's the irony. Fit and fine. What my heart and other bits do, hidden in the dungeons of my body's darkness, is their affair. Shut down. Drop me dead. I'll be the only one not to know. So there. Not that I am not DEAD grateful for their, so far, for their unstinting service and stamina.
Your sweet notion of dying before thirty to be classed as "romantic". In the vein of, say, Young Werther's Sorrows (Goethe). Of course, and to put it all into perspective, in the olden days (Goethe being one of the many exceptions - age 82) people died young anyway.
Linking in with your waiting for a "prodigious talent" as yet to kick in: If I want to make myself feel bad as to how inefficient I really am, despite superficial evidence to the contrary, all I have to think of is Mozart. He died age 35 and look at his legacy. Even my beloved Beethoven didn't make it to sixty, and deaf on top of it.
As I don't want to turn into my father and his verbal expanse I'll stop this comment now. Though you have touched on a wonderful subject one could have an exchange about for a long time.
Before I forget, and it was one of the turning points of my life: That notion of dying young, or whether your dying is of any importance at all, dies the moment you have children. Then, suddenly, you being alive matters.
It's nice, and good on you, that you are still here, Nick, your seventy two a respectable age. I'd also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge, and give due where it's due, that you have had the good grace, intelligence and wherewithal to continue our dialogue, despite many a blip. Not all people have your generosity of heart.
2020 - here we come.
U
"As I don't want to turn into my father and his verbal expanse I'll stop this comment now." Very wise. I might have to limit you to two comments per blog post, or I shall start to feel under siege....
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're still here Nick. I'm amazed that I'm 71, I thought I would always be 40! I've always been a worrier about almost everything, but lately my concerns are centred around my age and health. I worry when I can't remember things, I worry about twinges or something not feeling "quite right". I would like to think that I have acquired an enormous repository of wisdom, I do know a lot of stuff but still occassionally make the same bad decisions. I think Bijoux summed it up perfectly - not necessarily wiser, just better vision.
ReplyDeletePolly: I was just reading that if you're aware of memory problems, this is totally normal for anyone over 60. If you're not aware of any memory problems, that's when you have dementia.
DeleteI know what you mean about twinges and something not feeling right. That's normal for us oldies, I guess. I only go to the doctor if it's something severe like agonising pain.
Yes, that is reassuring about the memory.
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