Why, some may ask, do I write of my afflictions, my stumbling falls, the diminution of my physical self? Why do I not instead write of Kant, Marx, capitalism, exploitation, oppression, protests, strikes, even of Trump and Bannon, Bernie, and AOC?
In response I offer the great villanelle by Dylan Thomas,
which has appeared in this space before.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
The word “rage” in the well-known Thomas poem often puts me in mind of some lines from Richmond Lattimore’s little-known anti-war poem, Witness to Death, which contains an especially striking image of Chronos at work:
ReplyDeleteDisconsolate I
from the thinning line
have seen friends drop and die.
All I called mine
has gone or will go
from its place in the sun.
This we know,
and nothing can be done.
Villon, Nashe, Dunbar,
to your great testaments
I too assent from afar,
bestow my violence,
and throw my rhyme
and rage in the feeding face
of the great pig of time--….
I'm 75 myself and from what I can see, most of your regular commenters are old enough to feel old, so it's great to have a space where all of us can talk frankly about the dying of the light, which we too are experiencing. There's all too many spaces where we can discuss capitalist exploitation and undoubtedly most of us have commented so often on it here and there that we repeat ourselves, but the experience of being old, which no one prepares you for and which suprises us daily, often not favorably, is new territory which we can explore together with our eyes open.
ReplyDeleteAs some of you know, there was a profound and profoundly moving video done on aging with the philosopher Herbert Fingarette not long before his death at 97. If you haven't seen it, here's the link: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/604840/being-97/
ReplyDeleteSomewhat recently, I was thinking I'd mention the famous psychologist Erik Erikson and suggest there may be something of interest in his work, particularly on the stages of psychosocial development. But naturally, when I watched your fourth Freud lecture, you indicated not only that you had read, and thought highly of, Erikson's Childhood and Society, but also that you knew Erikson personally! I guess you aren't going to make things easy, then... :)
ReplyDeleteI've only just started reading C&S - it had been on my list for a while, but it moved to the top when you recommended it in that lecture. Earlier I had been clicking around on Wikipedia, and the article on the stages of psychosocial development made Erikson's work seem very helpful, illuminating, and profound, so I look forward to getting into it further.
A taste, for anyone who happens to be unfamiliar...
AGE / "EXISTENTIAL QUESTION":
<1 (infancy) / "Can I trust the world?"
1-3 (toddlerhood) / "Is it okay to be me?"
3-6 (early childhood) / "Is it okay for me to do, move, and act?"
7-10 (mid. childhood) / "Can I make it in the world of people and things?"
11-19 (adolescence) / "Who am I, and who can I be?"
20-44 (early adulthood) / "Can I love?"
45-64 (mid. adulthood) / "Can I make my life count?"
65+ (late adulthood) / "Is it okay to have been me?"
Anyway, Prof. Wolff, from here, it seems pretty obvious that you have every reason to answer your "existential question(s)" in the affirmative.
S. Wallerstein, you say that "the experience of being old, which no one prepares you for... suprises us daily, often not favorably"
ReplyDeleteI thought your point about aging being something we are not prepared for quite poignant. I must admit I am young, and thus have little experience with aging, though I can recognize how seldom aging and the realities of seniority are mentioned in common discourse. It seems most people would rather not think of an experience oncoming at breakneck speeds.
Yet, I do also wonder if society seldom mentions the wonders of seniority and if most people, indeed, ignore a possible beauty within that stage of life.
Do you believe there is any such beauty or wonder to seniority most ignore? Is there something so powerful in the process that it can negate much of aging's worst aspects? Is this all too optimistic? Is the true benefit of seniority simply discounts at certain all-you-can-eat restaurants?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and regardless say thank you for your original, interesting comment.
Guy Mizrahi,
ReplyDeleteHere I am with stomach pain and an endoscopy scheduled for Monday morning, but I'm not supposed to take my medication (which does away with the pain very quickly) for five days before the exam, and that's the kind of thing old age is like.
Today I went to the bank and I could see that the guy who attended me did not like his job and although he tried to be kind, was irritated with me. My impression is that while lots of people are kind to old people, no one likes them much: we move more slowly, we're more clumsy and we're ugly. Physical attraction is a very important aspect of liking others, I believe and no one is much physically attracted to us, although, as I said, lots of people are kind.
However, you asked for the positive side of old age. First of all, in most people I know (not everyone) compassion and empathy toward others increase. The selfish brat most of us were at age 18 is no longer present. Maybe we're nicer because no one is going to love us for how beautiful we are and thus, we try to win over others by our niceness (it's an unconscious process in general), but anyway, we're more compassionate and more empathetic.
The second positive point is that as the selfish 18 year old brat fades away, so do most of his or her dogmatic worldview, his or her intellectual superiority and there's more epistemic humility, more awareness that we're intellectually fallible, leading to a healthy (I believe) skepticism. Some people are dogmatic in their old age, I know, but that's not my experience.
Thanks for asking.
We discussed this matter two years ago in 2019 before the world was transformed by the pandemic. I repeat my post with minor variations. At nearly 65 I am one of the youngest of the regular commentators on this blog so I hesitate to lecture my seniors about death and how to face it, but I have to say that I disagree with Dylan Thomas (who died at only 39). Here's why
ReplyDelete‘Rage Rage against the dying of the light?’
Yes - if there were a God who made it die
Then rage might be the righteous just response.
A God who makes the marvel of a man
Only to wreck him bit by squalid bit
We might well rage against so cruel a God
Who makes only to mar his handiwork
Killing his creatures piecemeal by degrees.
But if there is no God, no hidden hand
Whose handiwork we are; if minds emerge
From undirected mindlessness, who then
Should be the target of our ageing rage?
There is no one to rage against; no mind
Who made us great only to bring us down.
Anger at nothing, anger at no one
Consumes the remnant of our fading days
In raging against deeds without a doer
(Which therefore do not qualify as deeds)
Deprives us now of joys we yet might taste
Poisoning pleasures still within our reach.
Fists shaken at the all unknowing void
Cannot be used to work what good we may
To make the world a better place for minds
(Our own and those we love or care about )
So do not rage against the dying light
Rather make what use of it you can
Do not despise the sunset but make hay
Whilst red and gold illuminate the land
Perhaps as twilight deepens there ’s a chance
Of love to feel or one last thing to do
Don’t waste last chances, don’t waste the last light
In rage against the light because it’s last
And if for you the twilight is too bleak
And nothing trumps the somethings that remain
Then DO go gentle into that good night
(First thanking those who brought what good there was)
Walk through death’s door to darkness, head held high.
Rage is a waste for we were born to die.
That was embarrassing. Here is superior verse, if I do say so myself.
ReplyDeleteI metamucil on the stair
And chased it to its fetid lair
For now I pass some hours there
Before my journey through midair.
Charles Pigden,
ReplyDeleteit is but six weeks since my life's companion of over six and a half decades faded, unraging, into the dying of the light. Thank you for your gentle thoughts, your open-eyed acceptance of life's godless vagaries and our own ability to nudge nobility, or at least decency into our last days despite all that it means to know that this, now, is the last light. It is this very gentleness which bequeaths both the most heartbreaking sorrow and the most illuminating, soaring understanding.
Cessero,
ReplyDeleteMy condolences.
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ReplyDelete