Getting old... - Page 5

Justin Isis · 01-19-2017

Nicole Cushing been quiet recently...Sirensongs too...

Kevin · 01-19-2017

Quote Originally Posted by ToALonelyPeace

What about Bleak&Icy? She's a man too?

How would you tell? Although, looking through the photo album, the feline bookends would seem to argue for a feminine purchase.

Kevin · 01-19-2017

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Nicole Cushing been quiet recently...Sirensongs too...

Yes, and I quite enjoyed my signed copy of Nicole's short story collection.

ToALonelyPeace · 01-19-2017

People in this forum love cats-I know for sure-so that can't be the indicator. I take people's words for it, and I recall Bleak&Icy said something about being a female in the "Proposal to Eliminate Thanks" thread. I might be entirely wrong though.

It is funny the number of females ever present in this forum can be counted one hand. Is it due to a lack of female pessimists? Females don't like to think about decay, growing old with moss? I know women buy tons of cosmetics and plastic surgery to prevent aging. Even once saw a 90 years old woman frantically asked a dermatologist why she had so many wrinkles.

Bleak&Icy · 01-19-2017

Emasculated in a public forum. The shame! Oh, the shame! I am most certainly a dude. Over the past few years I have come to see feminism as a cancer, and I consider myself an unapologetic masculinist (damn spell checker doesn't even recognise the word)--but that is not what I logged on to discuss.

At the age of forty I have become acutely aware that the world belongs entirely to the young--a fact that I did not understand when my face was unlined: youth is wasted on the young, ect.

I keenly feel that each of us comes with a built-in obsolescence, and that we pass our expiry date long before we die.

I have developed a horror and loathing of the elderly. The process of ageing is utterly repellent to me. When I was a boy, the elderly were irrelevant and I hardly registered their presence. Now I myself am irrelevant. When I pass in the street some poor soul bent over and ravaged by time I feel only horror and disgust. I try to summon pity, that ancient twin of horror, but all I feel is the urge to run. Pity, I remind myself, comes from the same root as piety, meaning dutiful.

In any case, it's all downhill from here.

Now I'm going back to my girly bookends.

Druidic · 01-19-2017

Actually, I'm fascinated by many old folk. It seems to me admirable and tragic that youthful minds can still exist in such ravaged bodies. The element of tragedy is beyond any other thing I can think of. Like Edward Derby trapped inside his wife's rotting carcass. Buried alive inside a body you no longer recognize in the mirror.
And some old people are fearless. They've been through hell and know that the future likely holds even worse. I admire their courage and tip my hat to these gentle souls.
And many are kind--kinder than they were when they were young. They can see through bull#### a mile away.
As John Prine said: I like old people. I hope someday to become one of them.

Bleak&Icy · 01-19-2017

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Yup, I've been spamming Greek yogurt every day for the past six months or so after reading of its numerous benefits for digestion and overall gut health (staggeringly important in general)

Over the holidays I read a number of books on the subject of gut microbe diversity, and I found the subject enthralling. I learned, for instance, that babies born by C-section, (I am not one of them), do not receive the natural transference of bacteria from their mothers' birth canal, and this can have ramifications as many as twenty years later, in the form of an impoverished microbiome; and these very microbes influence the production of neurotransmitters. In other words, the state of one's gut determines the state of one's mind.

All the literature stressed the importance of consuming probiotics and, more importantly, prebiotic fibre. The humble Jerusalem artichoke (no relation to the armour-plated vegetable Neruda sang about in the famous poem), contains the highest concentration of inulin, a form of fibre that the gut uses as a fertiliser to produce probiotics. So I tracked some down at the local market, alongside some Greek yogurt containing seven difference strains of "good" bacteria, and every day I made myself a large prebiotic salad. A few days later awoke feeling inconceivably sick. My stomach was distended, and all I could do was crawl from the bedroom to the bathroom, where I voided the contents of my stomach over and over again. It had been a decade or so since I last vomited, and I had forgotten how bad it can get. Let me state briefly: I did not think it possible that one human vessel could contain so much goop.

When I recovered I did some further research and learned that inulin, the prebiotic fibre contained in my healthy salad, can cause severe gastrointestinal distress in some individuals. Be warned.

gveranon · 01-20-2017

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

1. Gym routine, training with free weights two to three times a week. Take creatine and focus on deadlifts, bench, etc. Will lead to increased health and strength.

Goal: Look like Iggy Pop, ancient but ripped.

Quote Originally Posted by BleakИ132833

Emasculated in a public forum. The shame! Oh, the shame!

I wonder if the confusion was caused by your mischievous alter-ego, the cattiest female on TLO.

Quote Originally Posted by BleakИ132833

At the age of forty I have become acutely aware that the world belongs entirely to the young--a fact that I did not understand when my face was unlined: youth is wasted on the young, ect.

I keenly feel that each of us comes with a built-in obsolescence, and that we pass our expiry date long before we die.

I feel this keenly as well. Half the time I dream of being young again, but half the time I yearn for retirement, when I will be able to rot in peace amidst my stacks of dusty books. I want to remove myself from the scene; I don't want my life to be like this:

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

Actually, I'm fascinated by many old folk. It seems to me admirable and tragic that youthful minds can still exist in such ravaged bodies. The element of tragedy is beyond any other thing I can think of. Like Edward Derby trapped inside his wife's rotting carcass. Buried alive inside a body you no longer recognize in the mirror.
And some old people are fearless. They've been through hell and know that the future likely holds even worse. I admire their courage and tip my hat to these gentle souls.
And many are kind--kinder than they were when they were young. They can see through bull#### a mile away.
As John Prine said: I like old people. I hope someday to become one of them.

Sometimes an old person can be extraordinary in ways that a younger person never could. (Artur Rubinstein, John Lee Hooker, etc.)

Druidic · 01-20-2017

Gveranon is quite right.

The protagonists of Fritz Leiber's stories seemed to grow older right along with their author. Durrenmatt, even in his early works, seemed to prefer older protagonists (the cancer-stricken Commissioner Barlach, the play "The Old Ladies' Visit"). Borges' narrators were often reflections of an aging Borges. I think Lovecraft would have gone down that route as well with some interesting insights on the psychology of aging.
Forgive this sweeping and, no doubt, incorrect generalization: young people are pretty much the same everywhere while old folk can be full of surprises.

For Gveranon: I really like John Lee's later works. Amazing stuff. Too raw and primitive to call sophisticated, too sophisticated to call primitive. Just pure brilliance.

Bleak&Icy · 01-20-2017

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

Goal: Look like Iggy Pop, ancient but ripped.

I too have long been an admirer of the Iggy aesthetic, but I suspect we both lack one necessary element: copious amounts of drugs. I vividly remember watching the following segment on a famous Australian music program when I was a kid: