Benjamin Franklin once wrote in his maxims that 'he who is an old young man will become a young old man.'
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that some men are born posthumous. Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian and professor of religious studies at the University of Chicago wrote a novella entitled Youth Without Youth that was adapted into a film. I've never read the book nor seen the movie but I can relate to the title.
If I could rewrite the poet's famous line 'Je est un autre' ('I' is the other or someone else) it would be Jeune est un autre' (Youth is the other).
I've been an old man all my life. And it's not that I bemoan my fate, in fact I favor the Nietzschean, amor fati or love of fate. It is what it is, embrace it, nourish it, watch it, let it be.
And so it is.
For me youth has always been equal to idiocy, immaturity and ignorance. Youth is truly wasted on the young. The old are nostalgic, eyes glistening with thoughts for the golden time while the young go about blind, not recognizing the potential in their energy, the immense future and how that energy they possess is so often wasted on pranks and other innocuous but pathetic pursuits.
This is demonstrated in numerous ways. If you've ever driven by a high school, you'll notice the young walk out into traffic, brazen with a thousand lives in their pocket. If you've ever been to any downtown club on any given weekend in any given major city, the young dance all night and drink to their hearts content, vomiting to their stomach's discontent the next morning. And if you've ever wandered the halls of a university dorm, peeked into their rooms, the young are capable of pulling off all-nighters usually as a last resort due to their procrastination.
The young are careless because they can be.
Even when I was young I wasn't and in some ways envied the youth around me. I felt like I was speaking to my peers as if I came from another planet or though another medium. My classmates gravitated towards certain kinds of music and movies and though I tried to emulate them by following their interests I routinely gave up and subjected myself to a kind of generational exile.
I was always too cautious. I looked both ways, I've never really been one to party all night and I did my work on time.
And that's how it's been. I've come into this world to feel alone amongst those my own age, to be removed.
But it's strange, I always think of a scene in the film Wild Strawberries wherein the professor, Isak is looking in on the dream world of his memories. Standing to the side amidst the trees, listening to the chatter and gossip of his cousin and sister, Sara begins to describe the young Isak as a refined with sensitive soul, mature and intellectual whereas Sigfrid, the misfit brother is more "fresh and exciting."
It is a melancholy scene because Isak is an old man, has been all his life. He lost the girl of his dreams because of his seriousness, his appreciation of art and beauty. The poets are poets because they aren't the exciting ones. An artist has to fall for the careless muse, she is unreachable and pernicious in her immaturity.
I think of this scene and relate to it, especially when I'm looking online for a companion - I find the pretty ones just want to watch hockey or go out dancing at a club, dating a guy with abs and arms. I could do without hockey and dancing and I'd work out more if I didn't have to work.
Fresh and exciting. I've never been those things. I've been disillusioned. I've been lost. I've been found. I've been intrigued. I've been speculative and I've been confounded.
The trouble is, I'm an anomaly, I'm too curious and too easily bored. I probably should be in a big city, go to art museums and poetry readings but those worlds are filled with hypocrites and wannabes. The art world died as soon as Picasso ruined the canvas with his misogyny and ego and Joyce stabbed literature in the heart.
Or maybe I should be in Toronto, trying to break into the music scene. People tell me I have a beautiful singing voice (Dan Hill of 'Sometimes When We Touch' at a Songwriters conference even conferred) and my songs are unique but just the idea of trying to be an entrepreneur in a high-pressure field doesn't impress me. The idea of being on Twitter disgusts me and I'm clueless and sometimes, happily so.
I don't want to be a part of those kinds of worlds.
Instead I'm in south western Ontario, in a friendly rural community. I've been hired on for two jobs, one working as a service agent at a rental car company and the other job, a food demonstrator.
It's almost comedic. I feel like I've retired from what ever noble task I never completed or stepped up to tackle to find myself in the Hawaiian shirt section of my life. I'm sure they'll be fun jobs. No big salary I can boast. There's nothing remotely engaging about either position. They are just joe-jobs to pay the rent.
But what is this sadness, this sense of ho-hum hovering behind me, looking down at the bald (Or blind) spot of my life? (Ich weiss nicht, das es bedeuten soll, das ich so traurig bin?)
The jobs are part-time, flexible which will allow me ample hours to read and write and be left in peace. I like peace. I don't like crowds, the chaos is too much and the sense of anything could happen disarms.
I am an old man, right?
There are no regrets just a longing for something more meaningful and beautiful. A helpless yearning for a kindness from the greater mystery. It seems like it's always been this way, only now I'm wearing the shirt and finding it tough to forgiven myself for being different and outside the regular circles that people find themselves. Sometimes I've managed to sit in on the circumference, just in a few steps away from the isolation, looking in long enough to feel I mattered, offering something succinct, perhaps profound and belonged for a short span only to wake up and find it was illusory. There were a few conversations I loved and there was that golden light that filtered through a moment, a eureka moment but it lasted for the duration of a timely topic and once the discussion closed its door, I somehow closed myself off as well.
When I go out, driving past the brown, skeleton-like corn fields, out for groceries or the library, it's only to help me appreciate the coming back, the coming home. I go into town and the drive is lovely, there's no traffic to complain about, no overpasses and cement walls that make feel even more trapped. On Sundays I pick up the Toronto Star. I have my wine , my books and if I keep going, I might sound like a Simon and Garfunkel song.
I have my Hawaiian shirt, a breath of fresh air, an affordable peace for now and maybe there's someone out there who's envious of me. Someone who had all the freshness and excitement. I don't know.
Freshness expires, excitement eventually has to throw up. I guess my wardrobe is something to accept.
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