Youth Youth Youth
Here's another little quote from my bathroom reading (= TransWorld Surf, March 2007):
"You don't need me to tell you that we live in a youth-driven culture. Its a fact that pervades every level of our consciousness. We fight an un-winnable war against aging like no other society in the world ever has. We're more scared of growing old and irrelevant than of terrorism, grizzly bears, and dying in fiery car wrecks all put together..."
So you think you know what you're in for, and you grip yourself to face it, and stay relevant as best you can. Trouble is, the loss of youth turns out to be a little different from what you thought it would be. For example, I always thought that growing old would mean that I'd at least be getting wiser. I guess I defined my expectations too broadly. It's true that I have more perspective and information to work with, but I never dreamed in a thousand years that I'd be trading in a bunch of other wisdom stuff, like say stamina, concentration, and a long attention span. Who knew that even certain properties of smartness were doomed to our past? Like it's not bad enough that we have to lose our prettiness, innocence, health, etc. We also become more dumb.
Juniors and seniors used to warn me about this when I was a freshman: "yeah, I used to work like you too, but at a certain point your body just refuses, and you have to go to bed by 2." I didn't really take this insight to heart. It's true that I don't sleep 3 hour nights anymore (they've been upped to about 5, plus weekends), and I have enough discipline to get through a fully functioning day (actually a lot better than my narcoleptic college days). But amazingly, I think my productivity has gone down drastically. I used to think nothing of doing classes and activities and other homework all day, and starting my Greek at midnight and going until I was done at 5. I mean, that's like a good 8-10 hours of SOLID WORK that I used to pack in every day, at least. Now I feel like I'm lucky if I get in 4. I mean, I sit at a desk for about 8 hours, but my concentration levels are so low that I can't sit in one place for longer than 2 hours at a time. And once I get up from my desk, it becomes even harder to resume work. As a result, I usually have very little to show for a day's work. I really miss those days when I hardly even noticed the long stretches of pure labor, and without interruption.
Old age. Senioritis. God, I wonder if I'm EVER going to feel like I'm kicking ass again.
"You don't need me to tell you that we live in a youth-driven culture. Its a fact that pervades every level of our consciousness. We fight an un-winnable war against aging like no other society in the world ever has. We're more scared of growing old and irrelevant than of terrorism, grizzly bears, and dying in fiery car wrecks all put together..."
So you think you know what you're in for, and you grip yourself to face it, and stay relevant as best you can. Trouble is, the loss of youth turns out to be a little different from what you thought it would be. For example, I always thought that growing old would mean that I'd at least be getting wiser. I guess I defined my expectations too broadly. It's true that I have more perspective and information to work with, but I never dreamed in a thousand years that I'd be trading in a bunch of other wisdom stuff, like say stamina, concentration, and a long attention span. Who knew that even certain properties of smartness were doomed to our past? Like it's not bad enough that we have to lose our prettiness, innocence, health, etc. We also become more dumb.
Juniors and seniors used to warn me about this when I was a freshman: "yeah, I used to work like you too, but at a certain point your body just refuses, and you have to go to bed by 2." I didn't really take this insight to heart. It's true that I don't sleep 3 hour nights anymore (they've been upped to about 5, plus weekends), and I have enough discipline to get through a fully functioning day (actually a lot better than my narcoleptic college days). But amazingly, I think my productivity has gone down drastically. I used to think nothing of doing classes and activities and other homework all day, and starting my Greek at midnight and going until I was done at 5. I mean, that's like a good 8-10 hours of SOLID WORK that I used to pack in every day, at least. Now I feel like I'm lucky if I get in 4. I mean, I sit at a desk for about 8 hours, but my concentration levels are so low that I can't sit in one place for longer than 2 hours at a time. And once I get up from my desk, it becomes even harder to resume work. As a result, I usually have very little to show for a day's work. I really miss those days when I hardly even noticed the long stretches of pure labor, and without interruption.
Old age. Senioritis. God, I wonder if I'm EVER going to feel like I'm kicking ass again.
posted by Rex at 12:13 AM
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