Friday, December 11, 2020

Dr. V talks about the perks of old age

Does this apply to you?

You now have money enough[,] and you now have time. The time left is shrinking, but it is your own. There is little left to prove. What needed proving has been proven by now or will forever remain unproved. And now it doesn't much matter one way or the other.

You are free to be yourself and live beyond comparisons with others. You can enjoy the social without being oppressed by it. You understand the child's fathership of the man, and in some measure are able to undo it. You have survived those who would define you, and now you define yourself. And all of this without rancor or resentment. Defiant self-assertion gives way to benign indifference, Angst to Gelassenheit:

Brief light's made briefer
'Neath the leaden vault of care
Better to accept the sinecure
Of untroubled Being-there.

You now enjoy the benefits of a thick skin[,] or else it was never in the cards that you should develop one. You have been inoculated by experience against the illusions of life. You know that the Rousseauan* transports induced by a chance encounter with a charming member of the opposite sex do not presage the presence of the Absolute in human form. Less likely to be made a fool of in love, you are more likely to see sisters and brothers in sexual others.

Read the rest on your own.


*"Rousseauan"?  I always thought it was "Rousseauvian."



3 comments:

John Mac said...

"Less likely to be made a fool of in love, you are more likely to see sisters and brothers in sexual others."

Nope. Not for this oldster.

Kevin Kim said...

Indeed. Because as you repeatedly attest on your blog, you're not "less likely to be made a fool of in love." Heh. Still learning—or trying to learn—those lessons.

John Mac said...

Heh. Yeah, that too.