Realising the limits that come with ageing

So, wallop! Youth and ageing have brought this first part of ‘Getting Directions’ to an unplanned end.

So, we can’t forget what we come to know. A temporary escape is as good as it gets. AS. GOOD. AS. IT. GETS. I can’t complain at the thought. It was my own conclusion.

So the limits to escaping seem bleak. And I’m thinking I need to rethink what I’m thinking about.

So I’m looking for a label to apply retrospectively to ‘Getting Directions’ to date. But all I can think of is ‘death, death, death’. Death seems to have overshadow what I’ve written thus far. There’s so much fragility. Yes, Covid-19 is now stalking us all, but that merely rubs our faces in it. Death in your face. But death was always there. Always is there.

So, really then, at root, why this juddering halt? We all know we’re all going to die sooner or later. This is not a surprise.

So, yes, I’ve been very close to dying. Yes, proximity amplifies. But that’s all it does.

So what should I do in the light of death’s tedious and predictable presence? What would be appropriate intentions? Making sure you enjoy what life you have left? Consciously enjoy it? Carefully enjoy it? Knowingly enjoy it? Taking nothing for granted?

So, how can I make those intentions into more than mere platitudes for my conscience? And how can I begin to understand why I’m seizing on them as valid intentions?

And so, predictably, rightly, the question of escape looms too. That’s where this train of thought started. And so how do I put death’s noisy, boring clamour aside? How do I even start to think about what it is I’m hoping to escape from; escape to?

Photo: a no entry sign and a concrete road block

The why of it

This is a mess. I’ve had to struggle to be at all coherent. But brains can struggle sometimes. Whatever else is may be, it is representative.

Arguably

Perhaps the most interesting thing about death is that humans seem unwilling to take its inevitability fully on board. We may be able to understand the concept in the abstract.

Understanding its day to day implications is another thing entirely.

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