Burn the armchair

[smokingboot]

It's been a while since my own ravin' raven gave a few rusty caws on my lj. Please note, this is a rather depressing demi-rant, in which I use words like 'we' and 'people' but I don't mean everybody...it's a clumsy way of referring to a general vague trend I've noticed. So, if you read this, please bear in mind, it's just mental froth. I am not having a pop at anyone in particular.



At first I wondered, why so many people I know are talking about middle age, getting old, and I wonder if it ever occurs to them that their bodies/ faces reflect their conversations,not vice versa.

You used to get it in your fishnets
Now you only get it in your night dress
Discarded all the naughty nights for niceness
Landed in a very common crisis
Everything's in order in a black hole
Nothing seems as pretty as the past though
That Bloody Mary's lacking a Tabasco
Remember when he used to be a rascal?*

People living longer, expected to work longer, and there's protest against this. I can't understand it, I want to be able to work forever, to write and play and think and spark up for as long as I can. And I wonder what happens to people, so desperate to be middle aged, desperate for a reason to stop trying and learning, as if we have a right to rest on our laurels...

What bloody laurels have we earned exactly?

I see people puffing along, saying over and over how they're 'no spring chickens' any more: no doubt about that as they repeat it to themselves and I watch the subconscious roleplay of the body reflecting the mind's demands on it. Decide one is old and the body will obey as best it can; after multiple determined repetitions, sure enough, trendsetter becomes twinsetter. And I wonder what happened to the raw edge of dreams and sex and wanderlust and exploration. How it got lost in mortgages and babies, how the filmmaker, the singer, the artist, the writer, lost themselves and never came back, how sagging women and dull-eyed men took their place.

Falling about
You took a left off Last Laugh Lane
You just sounded it out
You're not coming back again.*

Yes, people's bodies break down over time, but it takes much longer now than it once did, and that time will continue to stretch...and are folk happy with this? No, they are desperate for the memes of age and tiredness, desperate for the countdown to begin at 40 with all its gentle reasons not to try, to stick to old beliefs, the appropriateness of stopping effort, the rightness of being bloody dull, because however entrapping and soul-destroying these ideas are, they at least provide comfort against the harsh sense of failing one's dreams. It is better to believe those dreams were childish and bound to fade, rather than face the gnawing pain that random bad luck and personal mistakes brought it all to nothing, that more effort or a different kind of effort could change things even yet. Who wants to think that? A fine excuse for being lazy. And anyway, everyone gives these dreams up don't they?

Jesus, I'm so glad they don't, so glad that people are following that miserable old path less and less.

Everyone gets exhausted, everyone suffers fatigue. Those who work presumably do it for the rewards their work brings, be it financial or otherwise. That's not an age driven choice, it's a fun driven choice. When one has done much travelling, one may want one's own home, after lots of partying, one may seek a little peace. But that's the story of excess, not age. Children who've moved lots, want a home. Kids who live in shouty homes like time to themselves and quiet. It's adolescents who want sex for its own sake, passion for its own pure self, right? Reach a certain age and we smile and reminisce,we're talking comfort and familiarity, a good breeder and provider, not that craziness we once chased...

Flicking through a little book of sex tips
Remember when the boys were all electric?
...
Oh that boy's a slag
The best you ever had
The best you ever had
Is just a memory and those dreams
Weren't as daft as they seem
Not as daft as they seem
My love when you dream them up
Oh, where did you go?
Where did you go?
Where did you go? *

But let's not worry, the flag of the new will be picked up by the children, their eyes bright with new learning, while we practice zimmerframe walking 40 years before we have a reason to, but at least we can be pitied and no-one will make us think.

We'll leave it to them to save the planet, find the plot, make up stories, play new songs. They'll talk about it just the way we did. And then before any of it, they'll get a job, get married, get the mortgage, avvababy...then the light will fade in their eyes, they'll defer all those childish ambitions forever, and they'll talk about lawnmowers and money. They'll be too tired bringing up families and leading ordinary lives to follow their dreams through, so they'll pin their hopes on the next generation, who'll start with bright eyes and new ideas about saving the planet, finding the plot, making up stories, playing new songs, they'll talk about it just the way we did, and then before any of it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma9I9VBKPiw

*lyrics from 'Fluorescent Adolescent' by the Arctic Monkeys. Yes, I like these guys too much!

Comments

[bytepilot.livejournal.com]

One does not stop playing because they grow old.
One grows old because they stop playing.

There is no reason, now or ever, to lie down and die.

Join me in Forever sweetheart, and we shall sing electron songs to the Circle City when the last tower goes up in 3404.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

By then I will be cloned, and at least two of us will be partying with you while Shiva draws breath and the universe plays on!

[bytepilot.livejournal.com]

Excuse me whilst I adjust my perceptions.

Yes, Life is sweet.

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thank you:-)

[cyanidemigraine.livejournal.com]

i firmly believe that getting married, having children, possessing a mortgage, being employed, do not mean you "have" to become boring and mundane, maybe im being naive.

Naive?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Not at all. There's no 'have to' in it, it's all choice. But somehow the combination of the above seems to be the permission-giver for fogeydom. People don't need permission - I just grit my teeth when they blame age rather than their own preference.

Re: Naive?

[cyanidemigraine.livejournal.com]

point


we humans do love our excuses, but i guess if its secretly what they want to do....tis a shame, i guess all i can really do is get married, get a mortgage get a kid and lead by example ;)

Re: Naive?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thing is, it doesn't need to be a secret...but it does need to stop being an excuse, not least for pinning stuff on the future generations we should be sorting out ourselves.

Ad for you doing all that stuff, I advocate it heartily; the day a foxy little boy stares up at you out of sharp green eyes, calculates the odds, listens to your reasons and then runs off to do his own wild thing, 'Aunty Debbie' will listen to his stories and laugh like the witch she be!

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

Most people have an 'off switch' that activates when they hit a certain age. A couple of years ago I tried to teach one of my contemporaries how to acquire an LJ, post on it, do cut tags, and link to pictures. Easy, you would think. No. His 50 year old brain (his words) couldn't manage it. And this was a guy who was in a class for gifted kids when he was 13. Mind you, I always thought that he had ADD but he shouldn't blame it on age.

Isn't it odd -- and it may not be the case in the UK -- that 55 is the usual age at which one becomes a senior, at least for the purposes of discounts and moving into a home? Life expectancy goes up while the retirement age goes down. Sadly, I think that while people will live longer, they won't live longer in good health. An active lifestyle will mean more joint replacement surgeries for the over-50s.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

His 50 year old brain (his words) couldn't manage it

I agree with what you say about where he places the blame. Honestly I don't think the 'off' switch activates itself. I think people choose when to switch it off...

As to folk living longer, well a lot will depend on where they are I suppose, but I hope good diet, intense info access and wicked living will keep the up and coming crumbly generation vibrant for a long time to come.

In defense of middle age.

[ravenrigan.livejournal.com]

Now personally I'm rather surprised to be enjoying being middle aged. I'm enjoying knowing the answer, enjoying the strange thoughts and understandings that pop into my head, and saying to myself "help, that's wisdom".

I'm enjoying the choice - to go out and party, or to curl up on the sofa with my loved ones, I'm enjoying slowing down a bit. I'm enjoying the daft English middle-aged nuttiness of hanging out with Morris Dancers, Battle re-enactors, and aging gamers, who accept themselves as they are.

I am enjoying the freedom from having to be cool, and discovering paradoxically that when I am my eccentric middle aged self people seem to think I am.

I can put a bit of slap on dress up and go out, and drink people half my age under the table, or go "fuck it, I'm nearly fifty, I'm not a sex object any more (except to my lover, but that's another story) and I don't have to."

Hell I even quite enjoy the occasional bout of middle-aged invisibility. It's nice to observe from the silence, to learn to listen and be still. There was too little stillness in my youth.

My youth was driven, racked with nightmare, bad parenting, bad love, bad friends, too many drugs, nowhere to call home. My thirties were an immense improvement as step by painful step I transformed all those things. My forties, I built a career, something I never thought I wanted, and a home, which I had always needed, and found love all over again. Hell, when I was 20 I didn't think I would live until 40!

I can't dance or leap about the way I used to, but I'm enjoying my gentler pursuits. Returning to some of my early loves, sewing, embroidery and creativity with more knowledge and more patience and the ability to reflect, and see things through.

I'm finally learning to be gentle with myself. I have some confidence. And I know my weaknesses as well as my strengths. When I was young and thoguht I was superhuman, I wouldn't acknowledge them. Now I accept and forgive them.

I'm not giving up, I'm taking time to smell the flowers. When I create I sometimes even finish things, and occasionally I'm even happy with them.

The flames of passion are burning down, but theres a long cosy evening left in front of the embers, for anyone who wants to join me for a snuggle and a nice glass of wine!

I've lived hard for my middle age, and I'm damned well going to enjoy it, in my own inimitable style.

And no, not taking it personally in any way, just putting a different point of view...

Re: In defense of middle age.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Totally respect what you say. Of course, you have the right to enjoy all these choices. You always did have though. What had age to do with it? Only, surely, what other people imposed upon you, and the labels you accepted from them. You could have been quiet or cool or responsible or slow whenever. You could have enjoyed sofa or cuddles when you were 20, could still be doing the wild passion thing now. But age isn't what's making those choices for you. It's what you allow yourself and when you allow it.

For some of us, the fire still rages, unchecked and unchanged...but I have always needed gentleness too. Age never made me wise. Mistakes did!

Re: In defense of middle age.

[ravenrigan.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is mistakes that make one wise. Perhaps the reason I celebrate my middle age is that it has given me the time to make them. And I really don't miss the endless pain of their making. I could have been all those things, but I didn't.

But the main reason I celebrate it is that it surprises me so much to be enjoying it so much.

I think the thing is to be who you are and where you are at the time, whatever age you are.

Comment disappeared!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I think this is what I wrote.
think the thing is to be who you are and where you are at the time

Too right.Time is the thing. Time gives us the opportunity to learn, but age doesn't guarantee we have done so. I've met heaps of ignorant old people, heaps of wise younger people...it's all about what the individual chooses to make of it I guess.

[velvet-the-cat.livejournal.com]

I agree with pretty much everything you say, except: "People living longer, expected to work longer, and there's protest against this. I can't understand it, I want to be able to work forever, to write and play and think and spark up for as long as I can. And I wonder what happens to people, so desperate to be middle aged, desperate for a reason to stop trying and learning, as if we have a right to rest on our laurels..."

This very much depends on what your *work* is. Not everyone gets to do something they enjoy so much to pay the bills. I actually worry more about some of the people I work with who say they don't want to retire because they'll be bored. There are so many things to do and try (to keep alive), the thought of going to the office every day being the highlight of my life would probably lead me to the nearest cliff for a short walk downwards!

Work just gets in the way of doing all manner of other things that are enjoyable and enlightening that sadly don't keep the mortgage company at bay!

Personally, the older my frame gets the younger my mindset seems to grow! I fear I shall be wearing purple when I am old! ;o)

Ah work.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I concur with what you say here... Of course, the ideal is to find the work of one's heart, something one wants to do with passion, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why so many have the desire to switch off...to just not think about the life making do, the work that could have been done, the script that stayed in the bottom drawer, the audition passed up, the evening course to be started next year. Yes, I can see that such would crave retirement, to pursue the flight of their craft/imagination. But isn't there a powerful argument for bringing that forward and making it a part of life now?

But I also think there are a sizeable number of people who don't need to enjoy their actual work and have a high boredom threshold. Not everyone has big dreams. They may find the work dull but bearable, maybe they attach to the people they work with or love being part of a bigger purpose, daily life as a functioning part of a team, belonging. I can see why retirement might look very bleak to such.

Guess on some level, if one can find what one loves, whether it's professional work, art or babies, and fill one's life with it, one may not stay young forever but one will feel it. Of course, the key is finding what one loves, and not going for the approved default. That perhaps is quite tough.

Re: Ah work.

[velvet-the-cat.livejournal.com]

"Yes, I can see that such would crave retirement, to pursue the flight of their craft/imagination. But isn't there a powerful argument for bringing that forward and making it a part of life now?"

At this point I speak more from personal experience. Pursuing the craft in my case is a big part of my life now, but it has to fit in around 'work'. Work is currently a necessary nuisance that merely infringes on the more quality ways of enjoying time. I work to live, but resent how much time work takes up. For all my complaining, I don't hate most of what my job entails, but there are a myriad of other things I would pursue if that time was freed up. The days are too short for me to fit them all in. I'd struggle if I wasn't working, but at least there would be more scope!

(And yes, I am trying to find ways out of the daily grind, believe me, I'm trying!)

Re: Ah work.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I hope and trust that you will find a way out. My work gets in the way of my craft too, but I guess I am enjoying it too much to resist - a different kind of danger, and I would be very short sighted not to see it. Should be using this time to create more. Must address that issue, but am lazy!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

BTW, must say, you look younger now than you did when I first met you, and I swear that is the mark of a mobile mind.

[velvet-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[squeezypaws.livejournal.com]

*nods. I agree. Although growing babies is a remarkably creative journey, and *sometimes* the cosy domesticity is scene setting for that. It makes sense to take the stilettos off before you force your foot against a surgical stirrup. Its hard to gain purchase otherwise.

Pressurising children to fulfil one's unfinished ambitions is one of the pay backs for the pain of labour I believe.

On that note Charles WILL join the Royal Ballet and perform the dying swan. Oh yes.

But you're right.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Ballet? Good heavens, look at the boy. He's got rugby written all over him!

[andsoitisso.livejournal.com]

:grinning:

I was reading that rant and thinking I so love this cheeky girl called Boot.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

*Smiles* And she so loves you loving her! She loves to hear from you too:-)

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

I have a secret weapon in the way against becoming 'old'. I am an artist. As an artist I can be what I want when I want to. I can turn up to posh parties in paint spattered jeans and get drunk and people will just think-well, he's an artist. I have public licence to be eccentric, childish and rude because people expect artists to be eccentric and to break all the rules. Artists only grow old if they want to. They never 'retire' because retirement is actually death, and even then we often live on in our work left behind us like the detritus of our existence.
If Greyson Perry can go everywhere dressed as a little girl and people just nod wisely and see it as normal for an artist then my lifestyle and vocation is truly one of the most liberating possible. It almost makes up for being damn poor. Actually, with the exception of the times when I am completely broke, it totally makes up for being poor. :)

I just don't 'do' that middle aged crap. what's really funny is that it all just goes to prove what the role of an artist is (only few people, including artists, seem to get it)- every society has its permitted outsiders-people who are given cultural permission to break the norms and social rules and be whatever they want. They stand apart as shaman and risk takers-going into the soul of society.

You know what-I think authors have that right as well ;)

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

*grins* You have the exact and perfect right of the matter:-D

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

I have a secret weapon in the way against becoming 'old'. I am an artist. As an artist I can be what I want when I want to.

That's just being eccentric. Anyone British (and some others too) can do that just fine.

;-).

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Hello you!

Re eccentricity, I think we can all do it, but for some reason, Brits do seem to have a head start. But why? I can't work it out...

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

There is an extent to which we are very accepting of difference in the UK-but I think that while in the UK you have to be markedly so to get away with it, whereas if you go to the States they seem to accept even small signs of eccentricity in the British as 'normal' and even a bit quaint. We are happy to accept someone like Grayson Perry because he fits our own norm of the eccentric-helped by his occupation. We are also very used to accepting eccentricity from the aristocracy that may not be accepted from others perhaps. I think the map of social roles that eccentricity is accepted from, expected from or deemed unsuitable in, is actually rather complex.

Perhaps our island identity, which has forced us into accepting close proximity with difference, is partly to 'blame'? We have always had very different types of people arriving here to live, and we can either integrate (accept) them or try and fight them off. In general we have integrated them-and that might create an ability/need to live with difference. Or maybe we are all just mad? ;)

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I quite like the idea of island mentality = being a bit bonkers or accepting the bonkers in others. But then I look at Japan and Sicily. I don't know enough to understand what their attitude to eccentricity is, outside of the stereotypes...

Poetic sense of national barmihood aside, I am beginning to think the whole globe is nutes!

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

hmmm-you make a very good point here. It cannot just be the island mentality. Of course any culture is the product of a myriad of forces-identifying ones that contribute to particular aspects of cultural identity is not easy!

I think we are not just nuts-but also rather ill alas.

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

Anyone British can do that in another country easily enough (especially America), but unless you are visibly way out I don't think you can actually get away with it in the UK. If you turn up in jeans with a bottle of whisky to a posh wedding most people think you are being crass (which I guess you would be)-but oddly, if you are an artist/creative you can get away with it, when if you work as an accountant you can't.

Whats really odd is that its actually harder being an artist and being accepted as one if you dress and act normally-its almost as if people expect artists to be odd or a bit wild and are actively disappointed when they are not.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I think you hit the nail very precisely on the head when you spoke of the shamanic outsider. The artist is allowed to be that, provided he never really breaks taboo. That one rule aside, as long as he never tries to be ordinary (that would indicate belonging) and remains comparatively harmless, gentleness is shown. Perhaps it's about the artist as release rather than threat...

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense.
The whole ordinariness thing is fascinating-for many years I found people confused because outwardly I was too ordinary for their image of an artist-I found that working both as an artist and as a designer created conflicting images, evoked conflicting roles and 'myths' in people. There is an extent to which when people buy art they are tying to buy into the myth of the artist-to buy into an outsider lifestyle and the mystique that surrounds it. People need their artists to adhere to that mystique.

What you say about threat vs release is interesting-I shall have to ponder that :)