This Mortal Coil
October 22nd 2006 13:56
I got an email from a friend the other day, hadn’t heard from him in years. He’d been doing all the normal work things, but it turns out he’s had his hands full, because his wife had cancer and their younger child has a neurological disorder. Only now, after about 12 years, is he beginning to surface again.
A couple of months ago, I got a phone call from an old friend, about his brother, a guy I used to flat with and played in a band with. He’d been in hospital for a while, had two brain tumours removed, and wasn’t expected to survive the lung cancer slowly chewing at him. Just last week, I went to his funeral. At 50, he was too young, and as a writer, musician and songwriter, a serious talent was lost
Another guy I worked with, had a kidney transplant years ago. It failed recently, and while being operated on with a new one, his colon exploded, which will necessitate another operation next month.
And a girl I worked with recently, I’ve just heard, has been in an accident which will mean spinal surgery, learning to walk again ,and many months in hospital. She’s only in her 20s.
I’ve had my own issues with my family: disease, injury, all manner of psychological conditions surfacing, though fortunately mild compared to most. My father and sister had different cancers that responded to treatment and surgery, and recently Dad had some major issues with heart arrhythmia, but came good, and they are both well today. Lucky. Despite a lot of shit I go through, deep down I know I’m lucky.
The point of all this: Is this all you have to look forward to as you get older? Friends and family dying? Being swamped by problems bigger than themselves? Is this what we imagined our later life would be?
Quality of life has certainly improved, and my parents, in their 70s, certainly aren’t as ‘old’ as my grandparents were at the same age. But there is still this random nature to our lives that suddenly sweeps people away when you least expect it. One thing for sure: we owe ourselves the best life we can get. NOT ‘someone owes us’, we owe ourselves, we should work towards being as good as we can, rather than coasting, which we so often do. Not the wealthiest life, or the most meaningful life, but the happiest and most worthwhile, for those around us as well as ourselves. Sometimes that’s a struggle, as families teeter on the edge of collapse, and people at home and work and in social circles let us down, but we have to try. And some of those same people will lift us up too.
We shouldn’t end up like that cliché of elderly people who sit around swapping stories about their latest twinges and illnesses, and going through the lists of the dead. We should give ourselves more than that.
It’s been a tough couple of weeks, battling mild depression, writer’s block, and all the things going on around me (hence not posting as frequently as I should). And I find myself tempted into those clichés, but I try to resist. There are too many things to be done before the Big Sleep.
A recent phenomenon around Sydney has been called Weekend Warriors Nothing to do with fighting or car racing, but guys in their forties and fifties picking up guitars and drums and putting bands together, and jamming at meetings. As an old bass player, it‘s something I’m going to have to do, Rock ‘n’ Roll and me have a little unfinished business. It’s not about second childhood, or reclaiming lost youth, it’s about fun! About stepping back from the commitments placed on us and doing something different, being someone different, if only for a while.
This column could almost be reduced to Dylan Thomas’s poem, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’. If you haven’t read it, go and look it up (you’ll find it online somewhere). And that’s all I want to say: do your best, be your best, help those around you and have fun doing it. Don’t let this mortal coil drag you down.
A couple of months ago, I got a phone call from an old friend, about his brother, a guy I used to flat with and played in a band with. He’d been in hospital for a while, had two brain tumours removed, and wasn’t expected to survive the lung cancer slowly chewing at him. Just last week, I went to his funeral. At 50, he was too young, and as a writer, musician and songwriter, a serious talent was lost
Another guy I worked with, had a kidney transplant years ago. It failed recently, and while being operated on with a new one, his colon exploded, which will necessitate another operation next month.
And a girl I worked with recently, I’ve just heard, has been in an accident which will mean spinal surgery, learning to walk again ,and many months in hospital. She’s only in her 20s.
I’ve had my own issues with my family: disease, injury, all manner of psychological conditions surfacing, though fortunately mild compared to most. My father and sister had different cancers that responded to treatment and surgery, and recently Dad had some major issues with heart arrhythmia, but came good, and they are both well today. Lucky. Despite a lot of shit I go through, deep down I know I’m lucky.
The point of all this: Is this all you have to look forward to as you get older? Friends and family dying? Being swamped by problems bigger than themselves? Is this what we imagined our later life would be?
We shouldn’t end up like that cliché of elderly people who sit around swapping stories about their latest twinges and illnesses, and going through the lists of the dead. We should give ourselves more than that.
It’s been a tough couple of weeks, battling mild depression, writer’s block, and all the things going on around me (hence not posting as frequently as I should). And I find myself tempted into those clichés, but I try to resist. There are too many things to be done before the Big Sleep.
A recent phenomenon around Sydney has been called Weekend Warriors Nothing to do with fighting or car racing, but guys in their forties and fifties picking up guitars and drums and putting bands together, and jamming at meetings. As an old bass player, it‘s something I’m going to have to do, Rock ‘n’ Roll and me have a little unfinished business. It’s not about second childhood, or reclaiming lost youth, it’s about fun! About stepping back from the commitments placed on us and doing something different, being someone different, if only for a while.
This column could almost be reduced to Dylan Thomas’s poem, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’. If you haven’t read it, go and look it up (you’ll find it online somewhere). And that’s all I want to say: do your best, be your best, help those around you and have fun doing it. Don’t let this mortal coil drag you down.
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
It's probably generally true that the happiest times in people's lives were when they were children, and the rest is downhill.