No more games. No more bombs. No more walking. No more fun. No more swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.Is this what all of we baby boomers need to think through as we age, consuming more and more of our childrens' resourses, returning less and less value as each year passes?
It's an idea that haunts me.
2 comments:
Comment. First as to the quote. It is obvioulsy very "poetic", perhaps reminding one of the 1960's beat/hip/Dylanesque kind of white man's rap that was really very self indulgent--but that is another point about Art.
The quote--haven't read the story- is an obvious prelude to suicide. For my taste it betrays a deep depression, pessimism and surrender the negative impulses in us. Way back in the days of my youth, a priest taught me that the essential sin in suicide is despair, the ultimate dispair. Religion aside, I agree with that. Despair leads to consequences that are terrible for people in may ways--no matter what the age.
A person's outlook, or attitude , or perception on life depends on how that person deals with stimuli around him. One man's disappointments with life-job, wife, children, lack of superstar status, losing ones hair, getting older--are another man's opportunity to see optimism in other aspects . Better yet, they are a chance to see postive attibutes in other, perhaps more valuable things.
This person, prior to suicide, fell prey to the easier road of giving up to old age, and the problems of life. I have a tendency with quotes like that to scream--"stop whining", get a life, and get on with it. "Realize that there always have been and alway will be wars, disappointments, and wrinkled skin."
What "haunts" me about that quote, is the utter failure of the speaker to realize that a life well lived and long lived gives joy to those who matter most. Ending your life, 'cause your tired of War, etc, et, sounds to me like just another bad Joan Baez song--taken too far. By the way, I saw Joan on TV the other night. She looks very put together...cool hairdo, very nice house, cool clothes, and seems very happy...I guess she didn't really buy into her goofy music. Let's all strum a guitar and get blurry eyed about the troubles in the world, whine about it for thirty years, and then end it all. Pretty shitty thinking, but, hey people will buy into anything, even the "coolness" of suicide.---s/ LET
OK. OK Don't get all carried away. I'm not advocating suicide at the first sign of depression.
Yes, the quote was a suicide note. And yes it was self-obsessed and maudlin, although I don't read despair in it so much as boredom.
But, for all that, there is an interesting point here, I think. And this point is actually embedded in your argument "that a life well lived and long lived gives joy to those who matter most."
At what point does " a life well-lived" become a thing entirely in the past? At what point does life cease to be "a joy to those who matters most?" As modern medicine advances, that point will ever more frequently arrive well before the person actually dies. So, what does the person do at THAT point? Does he/she have some sort of obligation to make a graceful exit by,say, refusing treatment (a kinder, gentler sort of suicide). And if we condone passive suicide at that point, why not active?
The point at which we decide we have transitioned from a "life well lived" to a life of pointless suffereing and misery for ourselves and others is something that will vary tremendously from person to person. For me, that point is probably well past where it apparently was for Hunter Thompson. But still, the principle is the same. At some point it comes time to leave, even if we could stay.
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