Maxims for aging and thoughts about life in Daydreaming on the Porch
- Nov. 10, 2022, 12:22 a.m.
- |
- Public
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
H.L. Mencken
There are many wise young people, but they are marginalized as “old souls.”
You all of a sudden realize that you are being ruled by people you went to high school with. You all of a sudden catch on that life is nothing but high school… class officers, cheerleaders, and all.
Kurt Vonnegut
Look at the mess Baby Boomers have made of things. What happened to the idealism and hopefulness of the Sixties?
At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.
George Orwell
Let’s hope it’s just a silly observation that our pets begin to look like their owners.
We all have our ‘good old days’ tucked away in our hearts, and we return to them in daydreams like cats to favorite armchairs.
Brian Carter
Oh, yes! Some would say I live in those “good old days.”
The man who was too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.
Henry S. Haskins
Sadly a majority of people decide to stop learning, some at a very early age.
When I was 27 I felt like a pebble on the beach. Now I feel like the whole beach.
Shirley MacLaine
At 27 didn’t care so much about a little pebble in my shoe, now I cannot endure the aggravation.
To be 70 years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-covered summit and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits, higher and whiter, which you may have the strength to climb or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I’ll take the next valley and settle there.
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Will Rogers
Time saved is often just time wasted.
In youth one has tears without grief, in old age grief without tears.
Jean Paul
I only shed tears thinking of my departed mother who imbued in me a reverence for God and Nature and all the beautiful things in this world.
From the book,
Old Age is Always 15 Years Older Than I Am, edited by Randy Voorhees.
Last updated November 10, 2022
Sleepy-Eyed John ⋅ November 10, 2022
:(
I worry about old age. I wish more people committed to learning full time. My brother doesn't at all.
Jinn ⋅ November 10, 2022
Everything in life is so uncertain now and seems to be getting more crazy as every day passes. I think this is a bad time to be old. :-(
Oswego Jinn ⋅ November 10, 2022
Not entirely. If we are old now we won’t see the catastrophic effects of global warming. *
Shudders*
Jinn Oswego ⋅ November 10, 2022
I guess that is a blessing.
Deleted user ⋅ November 10, 2022
No longer respect for aged people here. Even in schools teachers are not respected and many leave their job and look for something else. That results now in a very serious shortage of teachers in elementary and high schools. Universities are more or less okay but professors and lecturers complain that students are not well prepared for their further studies. Many are language poor. Used to the idiotic use of social media language etc. If they message their professors, they don't see the need to address them respectfully.
We also experience that behavior in our daily life here. Not only of the younger generation but also of the elderly. Traffic regulations, for example, are flouted. Red lights at pedestrian crossings. Why keep waiting? Oh my…I hate those kind of people.
It are often also those who do not care about our climate and some say: oh, we are already old, it will stand in our remaining time ... but our children and grandchildren will get the worse of it.
Well then, stand up too and demand that something be done. no blabla but action!
The previous years when youth organized weekly protest marches to demand more attention for climate change, there were a lot of people who reacted terribly rude to it and incited the young protesters because they spread fake news about the climate. Climate change is something of all times it’s always been the case, they said.
ah...I have to keep quiet about these topics or I may get into an autumn depression when I think too much about it.
Take care and be well dear friend. Also Greetings from Robert.
Oswego Deleted user ⋅ November 11, 2022
So much to think about, dear friend. We have the same problem here — terrible teacher shortages. I would imagine discipline problems are worse than ever. And with the pandemic and “learning” from home, kids couldn’t be with their friends and now suffer very high rates of depression. It’s very disturbing.
I think also they are not fools, the young people today. They are aware of how previous generations have despoiled, depleted and polluted this once beautiful and pristine planet. I get depressed thinking about it and can understand the anger young people feel. They did not cause this. Any sane person should have realized 100 years ago how terrible for the atmosphere all those exhaust gases coming out of cars were. And look what’s happened!! The world is headed for climate catastrophe.
I am going to try to be hopeful that the idealism and determination of this new generation and the ones after, will slowly reverse the course toward extinction we are on. I never imagined when I was young that all these terrible developments for the planet would occur. But all this was predicted. The politicians just didn’t listen because they were being paid off by the fossil fuel industry!
Deleted user ⋅ November 10, 2022
Maybe it's because my father was born in 1926 (Greatest Generation) and my mother was born in 1928 (Silent Generation), and they had me late in life when she was 38 and he was 40, but I've always been on older people's side. I loved hearing my parents' stories about their youth, and all the little details like how my mother and her friends used to use make-up to draw a black line up the backs of their legs because you couldn't get nylons during the war (that being WWII) and they didn't want to look bare-legged. I used to volunteer at senior homes in my 20s. Even in my GOP days, I used to say I'd vote for Al Gore if he ran because he stood for the environment and seniors and "we all need to breathe and if we're lucky, we all get old." Even now, one of my beats is geriatrics.
As my father used to say, at least about his generation: "We fought the big war, we built the bridges and the roads and the skyscrapers. We earned a little respect."
I do understand the generation gap and the memes, though. When Boomers were young, the dollar went much farther and education was affordable for a far greater percentage of the population, and it pisses Millennials off when their Boomer parents tell them to just "work their way through school and take loans." So many Millennials have had to choose between education and homeownership because it's nearly impossible to do both in the middle class anymore. And they look toward Boomer policies as the reason for it.
Meanwhile my generation, Generation X, sits in our cynicism, watching Boomer politicians tear the country apart in front of us, even as we want to turn back to the Millennials behind us and say, "What the hell did you EXPECT? Did you really BELIEVE all of that BS they told you about how everyone is a winner and how special you are when they handed you the participation trophy? Life isn't fair and you're not special!"
Generation Z, though, those kids are all right. I credit them with putting up the Blue Wall that prevented the Red Wave. I just said in a FB group today that Generation Z has the fire that Generation X might have had if only there were enough of us to actually do something with it. But there isn't, so all we can do is listen in a world that largely ignores us, remind ourselves that no one really gives a crap what we think, and try to use what little clout and position we may have to prop Gen Z up while the Millennials and Boomers are at each other's throats.
And then do this as warranted, heh: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/643/190/9e7
Oswego Deleted user ⋅ November 11, 2022
Yes, that’s the big joke on us. There never was going to be endless tomorrows of prosperity where each generation made more than their parents. I sure didn’t. I lived month to month most of my life until my late 40s, but I always idealistic and pursued. and mostly got jobs that were very interesting, challenging, and intellectually stimulating. My newspaper jobs were like that.
My college tuition was $135 a semester.. Today it’s simply outrageous that so many young people go into debt for a college education that in all probability won’t pay off the huge loans they’ve carried getting that education, not to mention exorbitant credit card balances. There are now, thankfully, so many alternatives to traditional four-year college educations.
And yes, I too have optimism and faith that Gen Z is going I rise up and try to save themselves and the planet after the climate debacle created by their forebears. What choice do they have? And they have to act fast, too.