Skip to main content

Getting Older

I played a game called "flugby" with my students last week, for two days. It's a game that combines soccer and rugby: you can kick the ball downfield, and you can catch the ball and run with it. What I noticed in the midst of these two games is that I'm slowing down. Maybe it was the fact that the first of the two days consisted of a full soccer-length match of one and one-half hours, or maybe it was because I'm now thirty-one and not as sprightly as I once was.

Regardless of the cause, I'm starting to get older. I've been in my career for nearly five years, and have myself set up in a lifestyle that is nothing less than routine. There have been small changes here and there, but on the whole, I'm experiencing time faster than I was.

It makes me think a little of how life is meant to be seen. In my mind, the ideal life is one in which youth, joined with strength and vigor, gives way to age, joined with wisdom and experience. That is, of course, the ideal. Life could easily-- though pessimistically-- be described as one that transpires in seasons, with the spring and summer of youth (meaning life, passion, strength) passing into the fall and winter of old age (meaning death, lethargy, and indifference). It could just as easily, depending on a person's station in life, be described as the ancient Egyptians described it. The consistent behavior of the Nile River led them (according to my history professor) to see life as cyclical, to believe the universe changed, only to return eventually to its previous condition.

One thing I still know to be true, though, is that a person's perspective on life will determine his or her behavior in it. If life is seen as a series of opportunities, the opportunist will be active in fulfilling his or her dreams or desires. In this case, life can go this way or that, depending on the choices of the people in it. If it is seen as a play, the protagonist will act out his or her drama according to the script in mind (in essence, an outcome that has already been determined and which it is only the actors' roles to play their particular parts).

To be honest, I'm finding a shift in my perspective from the first to the second view, as though I'm moving from one season in life to another. Life is less about seizing challenges and more about fulfilling responsibility. It's becoming less about free will-- taking advantage of those opportunities writ large across the palate of my mind-- and more about determinism, accommodating myself to the role I was meant to play in life.

Ironically, I can change this, and so prove that the first view is correct (or so I think, right?). I can simply look for new opportunities to grasp onto and rebuke my own poor attitude. I never believed in determinism, anyway. Life IS a series of opportunities. It is our job to keep that perspective alive, even when it's cold outside.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heroes

Although we have several examples of heroes in our day, one of the best known is of a woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (“Gonja Bojaju”), who devoted her life to sustaining the “poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.” Her venue was Calcutta, India, where she served as a teacher until she began to take notice of the poverty there. Seeking to do something about it, she began an organization that consisted of just thirteen members at its inception. Called the “Missionaries of Charity,” the organization would eventually burgeon into well over 5,000 members worldwide, running approximately 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries; and caring for the orphaned, blind, aged, disabled, and poor. As her personal work expanded, she traveled to countries like Lebanon, where she rescued 37 children from a hospital by pressing for peace between Israel and Palestine; to Ethiopia, where she traveled to help the hungry; to Chernobyl, Russia, to assist victims of the nuclear meltdown there; and to
2 comments
Read more

Comparative Medical Care

One thing I'd like to understand is why there is such a difference between medical costs here and those in Haiti. At the time the book Mountains Beyond Mountains was written, in 2003, it often cost $15,000 to $20,000 annually to treat a patient with tuberculosis, while it cost one one-hundredth of that-- $150 to $200-- to treat a patient for the disease in Haiti. Even if the figures aren't completely accurate, the sheer difference would still be there. Indeed, the United States pays more per capita for medical care than any other country on Earth. My first guess for why the disparity exists is that there is a market willing and able to pay more for medical treatment, so suppliers see the demand and respond with higher prices. According to at least one doctor (go to http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/what_is_the_cause_of_excess_co.php), part of the reason is administrative prices here. People here have a higher standard of living, and so the cost of care is shifted to
2 comments
Read more

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as
2 comments
Read more