Posts Tagged 'aging'

Brother, can you spare some wisdom?

Published February 25, 2009 Deep , Personal 1 Comment
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I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. – Umberto Eco

Where the fuck is my wisdom?

Seriously, wisdom was supposed to part of the deal, the salve that soothes amidst aging’s unceasing, unending parade of insults and torments. I am now well into my 36th year – my hair is thinning, my back is creaking, my sex drive is waning.

Wisdom should be accumulating, dammit.

I should know more about who I am, what I want to do, and why I’m here on this Earth. I should know more about how the world operates, more about love and relationships, more about politics and economics, more about morality and religion, more about culture and art.

I should know more.

And yet I feel at least as uncertain and confused about life as I’ve ever felt.

It’s not like I haven’t tried finding wisdom. I’m always searching for it. I am at least wise enough to know that more gray hairs don’t automatically translate into more gray matter. So I listen, I observe, I travel, I read, I muse, I cogitate, I study, I analyze. And yet the answers are as elusive as ever.

(I blog as well, obviously, though that’s a process I’ve come to see as mainly an attempt to convince others you have wisdom. Faking wisdom is of course a mighty poor substitute for having wisdom, but in a world populated mostly by fools, it will at least likely get you through the days.)

It’s scary how little I know and how contradictory my beliefs are. When it comes to religion, I’m an incredibly superstitious agnostic who prays when danger nears. When it comes to love, I’m a romantic who doesn’t quite believe in monogamy. When it comes to politics, I’m a bleeding-heart libertarian who has done nothing to change the world for the better other than exercise a wildly underappreciated right to vote.

Most days, I don’t even know who I am. What makes me happy? What is my purpose? Will having a family fulfill me or stultify me? Am I wasting my days away?

When will the wisdom come?

Sometimes I feel I’m right on the edge of being struck by some tremendous, life-changing insight. It’s hard to explain but I literally can feel wisdom’s presence hovering around me, just outside my grasp, like that of a pleasant, long-forgotten memory which I just can’t quite summon for recall.

My biggest fear is that one day very late in my life, I will finally grasp that elusive wisdom – the clouds will lift, the light bulb will go off, the angels will sing – only to find in the very next moment, before I can even share my hard-earned pearl with anyone, aging will exact its cruelest trick, and I won’t be able to remember what was so wise in the first place.

Questions: The Ipod Shuffle Edition …

Published December 15, 2008 Personal , Trivial , Universal Leave a Comment
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Partly inspired by Prophet and his ongoing top 10 albums of 2008 series, and partly because I’m otherwise uninspired, I’ve decided to take a different tact for this week’s questions: I am going to press shuffle on my IPod Nano and create a question somehow related to each of the first 10 songs that come up. I will also be giving some very quick commentary on the songs.

I am uncertain how well this process will lend itself to thought-provoking questions, and I will certainly be risking great personal embarrassment by exposing my music collection to the dagworld at large, but I am game if you are.

I reserve the right to skip any song that has no lyrics, has nonsensical lyrics, or is just too damn mortifying (even for me, who may be the most shameless person I know). Power on … press shuffle … and here we go …

1) Gone Daddy Gone. Gnarles Barkley. A fine opener. Good, fun beat. Like almost all Gnarles songs, doesn’t overstay its welcome. My rating 8/10.

Lyric: Beautiful girl lovely dress. High school smiles oh yes. Beautiful girl lovely dress. Where she is now I can only guess?

Q: What percentage of former lovers have you kept in contact with?

2) Cry Baby, Janis Joplin. Has any singer been more fierce than Janis? Look at the lyrics alone, and it seems like she is playing the weak woman, basically begging a man to come back to her … and yet with that voice, you can’t help but also hear the implied threat – ‘You want something to cry about, I’ll give you something to cry about!’ 7/10.

Lyric: I know you got more tears to share babe,  so come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, and cry, cry baby.

Q:  How often do you cry.  When was the last time you cried?

3) Circle Game, Joni Mitchell. Kind of funny that Joni comes right after Janis. They both have such powerful instruments with their voices yet use them in such different ways. I love songs – or any art, for that matter – that inspire melancholic, nostalgic thoughts, and this one does that for me. It’s a simple, beautiful melody. The lyrics and metaphor are a bit cliched, perhaps, but it doesn’t bother me one whit. 8/10.

Lyric: Take your time, it won’t be long now ’til you drag your feet to slow the circles down.

Q: If you could pick one year to be forever, what age would you choose and why?

4) Handsome Devil, The Smiths. Some songs I’m not sure how they got on my IPod. The beat’s OK but doesn’t do much for me, and the lead singer’s voice is a bit grating. But damn, the lyrics are nasty, so I have to give it some props for that. 5/10.

Lyric: Let me get my hands on your mammary glands, and let me get your head on the conjugal bed.

Q: What was your first experience with porn? What were your thoughts about it?

5) Believe, Cher. OK, this is one that comes very close to being too mortifying, and if I had any real shame, I’d never admit I had this song on this IPod. I sure as hell wouldn’t admit that I can’t help but wanna dance when I hear this song or that this ain’t even close to being the only Cher song on my Ipod. The computerized voice vibrato effects on this number are particularly gratifying. Really. 6/10.

Lyric: Do you believe in life after love?

Q: Well, do you? More specifically, the last time someone broke up with you, did you ever, even for a moment, think you wouldn’t be able to deal? How long did it take for you to get over it?

6) Think I’m in Love, Beck. This may not be one of Beck’s best songs, but it’s definitely one of his more approachable, comprehensible ones. Good beat. Like the violin transition about halfway through and at the end. No one does awkward, desperate romance better than Beck. 7/10.

Lyric: I think I’m in love, but it makes me kinda nervous to say so …

Q: Have you ever had feelings for someone, a friend perhaps, and never told them? Do you regret it?

7) Knocking on Heaven’s Door. Guns n Roses. Axl & Co. do a fine job with their cover of this classic Dylan song, revving up the guitars and rockness factor while otherwise staying mostly true to the original. Could do without some of the bells and whistles, like the gun sound effects and answering machine message, but you gotta love the way Axl belts out ‘Door-oor-oooor.’ 6/10.

Lyric: It’s getting dark, too dark to see. I’m feeling like I’m knocking on Heaven’s door.

Q: Do you want to be conscious when you die, to feel life leave you, or would you rather be unaware?

8) What a Wonderful World. Louis Armstrong. OK, it’s treacly, and trite, and we know the world isn’t always wonderful, or maybe even usually. But like Obama and his soaring rhetoric of hope and optimism, I believe in what Louis is selling. Ooooohhhhhh, yeeaaaahhh. 7/10.

Lyric: I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do? They’re really sayin’ ‘I love you’

Q: Do we as a general rule say I love you too often, sapping power from the phrase by using it too freely, or do we not say it enough, and by being so reserved not let people know how much they matter to us?

9) Let it be, Beatles. Just a beautiful song. Lovely piano playing, and god, Paul can sing. When I was in St. Louis for the Thanksgiving holiday, our family saw this Beatles retrospective at a local playhouse, and it was hilarious watching them try to recapture the Beatles’ magic. Beatles cover bands should be banned but Beatles cover bands with a fat and old Paul should be fined and/or jailed. 9/10.

Lyric: And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, There will be an answer, let it be.

Q: What’s your favorite Beatles song?

10) Black Acres, Elysian Fields. A sexy, sultry song to close it out. An entrancing bass beat, with beautiful violin and piano throughout. You can’t help but feel a little Randy (or in my case, a little Keri Wink) when the lead singer raspily declares, ‘Touch me now, Touch me, Black Acres are Claiming Me.” 8/10.

Lyric: He holds me up like a babe, pressing close. I can’t behave. I need to have this little death.

Q: If orgasms weren’t free, but could only be had by buying them on the open market, how much would you pay for one? How many would you buy in a week?

OK, this was fun, Will have to do it again sometime. Remember check out this post at dagblog.com for answers to these questions …

Yo Deadman, please don’t hurt ‘em …

Published November 8, 2008 Personal , Trivial , Universal Leave a Comment
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Ring the bell, school’s back in, break it down … Stop. Question time!

10) Ok, several days have passed. Are you still smiling and dancing, or do you find yourself suffering a bit from some sort of post-partum-like depression?

9) Not that I would know anything about this, but which is a more important element of looking good on the dance floor: Rhythm or self-confidence?

8) So I turned 35 this week. Is it lame that one of the things that most annoys me about this age is that I can no longer check off the 18-34 age group in surveys?

7) My awesome girlfriend got me one of those comfy leather recliners for my birthday (we once got in a fight because she said she thought those chairs were ugly and didn’t want one in her apartment while I insisted they were one of man’s god-given rights), and I have now fallen asleep while watching TV on that chair each of the past several nights. Have I become my dad?

6) Why or how did humans evolve so that they crave and demand variety in their meals? Every day, my dog acts like a Democrat who just found out Obama has won the presidency (i.e. like a delirious nut bag) when I take a scoop into his jar of food, even though I’m preparing to give him the exact same crap I always do. It seems like it’d be so much easier and more efficient if we humans could also be content eating the same thing every day.

5) Which is worse: Sarah Palin’s ignorance; the McCain advisers who chose Palin despite her ignorance; or the fact that those same advisers are now just piling on, anonymously leaking to the press more examples of that ignorance and suggesting she torpedoed the campaign?

4) One of the ironies of the election was that the heavy black turnout caused by Obama’s candidacy contributed to the passage of Prop 8 in California, which outlaws gay marriages. Do you believe the civil rights struggle of homosexuals is equivalent to the African-American struggle. If not, what is the difference? (This is not a trick question; I think there can be legitimate debate here, though in the end I personally don’t think there’s a difference.)

3) If you could find out the exact date of your death, but couldn’t do anything to change it, would you want to know? If you found out you were going to die within the next 12 months, what would be the biggest change you’d make in your life?

2) I have plenty of regrets in my life. One of them I remember well is telling a childhood friend in first grade that there was no Santa Claus, which was a really crappy thing to do (especially so cuz I’m Jewish). Do you remember when you first found out there was no Santa Claus and what was your reaction? (My apologies if I have once again spilled the beans and destroyed any delusions you may harbor).

1) Please look at the attached map below. It’s a graphical display of the voting trends in Tuesday’s election compared to 2004. The blue sections are areas where people voted more heavily Democratic; the bluer the section, the bigger the change.

Which of the following facts does this map reveal (Choose all that apply): a) The Republican brand and agenda is dying b) The Democratic brand and agenda is ascending c) Barack Obama was a better candidate than John Kerry or d) Damn, the South is disturbingly full of racists, esp. Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

2208 Voting Trends

Change in slow motion …

Published August 22, 2008 Deep , Universal 6 Comments
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Man* is an unbelievably resilient creature.

He can go from riches to rags and be OK, as long as he didn’t lose his fortunes overnight. He can go from being happily married to bitterly divorced and manage, as long as his love wasn’t betrayed in an instant.

I believe life can throw anything at us, and we will find a way to deal… as long as we have time to adapt.

Take the aging process … Is there any greater cruelty man must endure?? We can fight it, of course, but any victories we earn are merely temporary. There are no surprise endings, no upset specials, in the battle versus mortality.

Eventually, our hand-eye coordination will deteriorate, our physical beauty will fade, our most vital senses will fail. If we live long enough, our minds, too, will likely betray us, jeopardizing even the rare positives associated with aging – the nuggets of hard-earned wisdom, the accumulation of sweet memories – turning them into nothing more than fragile question marks.

And yet, as a rule, we handle all this deterioration with remarkable aplomb. The reason, of course, is that getting old literally takes a lifetime, so we have time to get used to all the changes, to watch them gradually pile up like so many tiny wrinkles. We can adjust. We can adapt.

In many cases, we can even deny aging’s worst effects until we are more prepared to deal with their reality. I mean, I was certainly upset when I realized about eight years ago in a Foxwoods casino bathroom that I was losing my hair, but I’m sure the agony would have been much worse that night if I could have somehow looked into a mirror from the future and glimpsed my current hairline. It would have been too much to deal with.

I still to this day will see an older person walking slowly down the street, struggling with each step, cane in hand perhaps, and be completely unable to imagine myself ever being like that. But one day, if I am fortunate to live that long, I will look into a mirror, and that is what I will see.

And by that time, it will probably be OK.

*I am not referring to the specific gender when I say Man. It’s just more poetic that way …

I’ll hang up my cleats when Favre does (or maybe not) …

Published August 8, 2008 Personal , Trivial 1 Comment
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Holy shit. Football is back. Here I am, still consumed by Cardinals baseball, dressing in shorts and flip-flops, loving the A/C, eating outside at restaurants, sweating in the subways… and yet, ten NFL teams played in preseason games last night.

This happens every August; I get totally blindsided by football’s return. But only for a moment – and then I get psyched.

I love football. I’m talking real, genuine, I-wanna-marry-you-and-have-your-children love. I know it’s silly and not totally healthy, but I can’t help it. I love watching games on TV and seeing them in person. I love managing my fantasy football roster, and then rooting for teams that I normally wouldn’t care about, playing in situations that don’t really matter.

But most of all, I love playing touch football in the park.

This fall will be the fifth year I’ve been organizing a weekly pick-up game in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. About 30 good men are members of the league – half of which usually show up any given week. The game is, in my humble opinion, a beautiful, beautiful thing, and I take it very seriously. I’ve created a Web site for our league, and T-shirts, and a stat book, and a RSVP list, and weekly email game recaps, and year-end award ballots.

We have an official field permit. We play for seven months every year, for three hours every Sunday, no matter what the weather. We have old people and young. We have slow people and fast. Fat people and skinny. Black people and white (and one Asian). Jews and Christians. Columbia students and NYUs. Brothers playing brothers. Cousins playing cousins. Even once a son playing a dad. We all get along pretty well, but you wouldn’t know it by watching the fights that take place virtually every week when the competition gets the better of us.

Sunday mornings from September thru March are literally some of the best moments of my life. And yet each year, the new season feels a bit more bittersweet, because I know I’m that much closer to having to hang up my cleats.

My mom, of course, would love if I stopped playing yesterday. She fears the worst. And her fears – at least this time – are not totally unwarranted. I have a heart condition called supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), which acted up last year during a couple of games. I also have a degenerative spine in the early stages of stenosis, which gets aggravated every time I play.

And serious injuries are not uncommon in our league. It’s just a game of touch, but we’ve had ruined labrums, broken fingers, cracked ribs, torn ACLs, strained MCLs, sprained ankles. Last year was the worst one yet for injuries. One of our regular players, a kid in his early 20s, decided last year the injury risk wasn’t worth it and stopped coming to games.

But me, I’m going to play til I literally can’t do it anymore, just like my cousin, who has smoked cigarettes for most of his life, has a bit of a gut, has had a couple major knee surgeries, is 46 years old, and still comes out almost every week and kicks ass (or at least yells a lot). If Favre can still air it out, and Steven Tyler can still rock it out, and Ron Jeremy can still do the ol’ in and out, then certainly I can try and two-hand touch it out.

After all, the games give me joy in a way few other things do. If I’m lucky, and live a long life, there’ll be plenty of time for me to sit around and watch TV, or hopefully, learn how to play golf. Sure, there’s the chance playing football could cause a debilitating injury that causes a lifelong issue i may not otherwise have had to deal with.

But life is full of tough decisions, of weighing risks versus the rewards. And often, the best things in life can end up causing the most pain … But you know what they say: Tis better to have loved football and lost an ACL than never have loved football at all.

 

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