Toward the Horrid Specificity
I've been feeling a bit dyspeptic today, and I worry that I've gotten cancer or a blocked colon or my appendix is ready to burst poison all over my system. And yet, unlike most other hypochondriacs, I quickly convince myself that it's nothing and definitely not worth seeing a doctor about. Maybe there's a physiological reason for my medical denial. No, I'm sure it's nothing.
But it does make me wonder about time. At times I automatically think of myself as the same person I was when I was 16--or even think of myself as still 16--but today's 16-year-olds were just being born back when I was a 16-year-old. I don't want to devolve this into me sitting in a darkened living room listening to some Pink Floyd album on headphones, but I really feel that, for the first time, I'm coming out of "youth" and entering "middle age." It's later than you think, as the song says (not Pink Floyd--much older than that, kids).
Modern human life starts at unfettered possibility, which funnels through our own actions and those of others, as well as random chance, to a horrid specificity: This is what he did, this is where he died. No one aims for the middle when they're young, but there's a tremendous pull there for comfort, for love, for entertainment, for leisure, for well-cooked, delicious, and timely meals. Okay, that's it...this has become a Pink Floyd song. Here I thought I had gotten wiser with age, and it turns out I only know what I did at 16: "Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in the cage?" Actually, the answer is no. I deserted.
But it does make me wonder about time. At times I automatically think of myself as the same person I was when I was 16--or even think of myself as still 16--but today's 16-year-olds were just being born back when I was a 16-year-old. I don't want to devolve this into me sitting in a darkened living room listening to some Pink Floyd album on headphones, but I really feel that, for the first time, I'm coming out of "youth" and entering "middle age." It's later than you think, as the song says (not Pink Floyd--much older than that, kids).
Modern human life starts at unfettered possibility, which funnels through our own actions and those of others, as well as random chance, to a horrid specificity: This is what he did, this is where he died. No one aims for the middle when they're young, but there's a tremendous pull there for comfort, for love, for entertainment, for leisure, for well-cooked, delicious, and timely meals. Okay, that's it...this has become a Pink Floyd song. Here I thought I had gotten wiser with age, and it turns out I only know what I did at 16: "Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in the cage?" Actually, the answer is no. I deserted.
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