Getting old...

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by Ibrahim

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech It's simply part of his post-Marxist critique of ideology. He does not, as far as I'm aware, provide "evidence" for such a view. To be fair, I can't think of any philosophical idea which is bolstered by actual "evidence" in the strict sense. Ideas from psychoanalysis, for instance, can never be verified. You'd have to look into its explanatory power as a whole. The idea itself is meant to explain how political regimes function, namely ideological commitments. I did not intend to ask for evidence, physical or otherwise; i was just curious if he follows some line of reasoning to reach the claim about belief he makes; any steps of abstract logic. For example, i can imagine that one might discuss the aspect of infinite regress his claim implies- what is at the end of this chain of placeholder beliefs? But if it's all just in service of explaining the function of political regimes, then i guess i'm not that interested anyway- any master/slave dynamic in which the former factor is fundamentally unknowable cannot be described, and any description would be mere projection of earthly encumbrances onto a far wider reality. Religion, our relation to the Mystery, cannot be otherwise but partly a mystery itself.

I know you weren't being contentious. But it is a very broad claim.

Ultimately, the chain itself doesn't end, though it requires quilting points of meaning (God, the State, the People, etc.) which create the illusion of stability. It's more or less the standard poststructuralist view of language as a continuous signifying chain in which meaning is forever deferred. I've really derailed this thread.

[barrywood]

I'm nearer to Age 70 than Age 45. Old people no longer look old and those in their 20s & 30s have such fresh faces.

[marioneta]

I will soon hit 67 revolutions around the sun, but aging seems to be mental in general, depending on your genetics.At 64 revolutions I developed hypertension and became a borderline diabetic. I get arthritic pains in my left shoulder at times, but overall I don't feel all those swings around our star. I dig my Heavy Metal CD's and I still carry a 60's radical/hippie attitude to life. In Mexico they say that Death is a woman who is just behind your ear whispering darkness to you. When I pass, I will embrace that darkness, but my ashes will be the soil of a new tree in my garden. Embrace the Darkness!

[Masonwire]

What else is there to say? I always feel that the human condition can be summed up comprehensively by just three to four poems by Philip Larkin.


The Old Fools (by Philip Larkin)

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there’s really been no change,
And they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching light move? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange:
Why aren’t they screaming?

At death, you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petaled flower
Of being here. Next time you can’t pretend
There’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power
Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines –
How can they ignore it?

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside your head, and people in them, acting.
People you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,
Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
The blown bush at the window, or the sun’s
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
This is why they give

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
Of taken breath, and them crouching below
Extinction’s alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:
The peak that stays in view wherever we go
For them is rising ground. Can they never tell
What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?
Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout
The whole hideous, inverted childhood? Well,
We shall find out.

[ToALonelyPeace]

Great poem, thanks for posting it @Masonwire