As Man Grows Up, Society Grows Down
contemplations & conjectures on my 65th birthday
As I write these words, I’m reflecting on that fact that I just turned 65. I’m not sure how that happened, but it’s not like I’m complaining. Reaching 65 is oodles better than not reaching 65, however the milestone does make me a trifle contemplative.
Time flies when you’re having fun, and when I look back at the whole picture, I’ve had far more than my share of jollies. Still, it’s tough to get my head around the idea that I’m now on Medicare and collecting Social Security (took it early). It was just an eyeblink ago that I was acting like a rum-soaked pirate in 1980s Florida, making like a latter-day mountain recluse in 1990s Montana, and reveling in the joyous Ozark beauty that surrounded my ramshackle river-cabin a mere 20 years ago
There’s something to be said for the encroachment of age. I’m not sure what that something might be, but I’m positive it exists. Wisdom perhaps? Maturity? Selective aural sense? I’m far from my dog Hugo’s 90+ years, but his ability to hear the rattle of the Milkbone box while remaining unaware of my yells to quit rolling in the dead possum would appear indicative of high-level brain function. I’m envious, just as I’m envious of his manner of aging gracefully. I doubt, should I reach the near-centenarian mark, that I’ll still be able to run around the yard and bark threateningly at delivery drivers as he does. Should I reach his age, I suspect I’ll be gumming my porridge, drooling a bunch, and glazing out on Matlock re-runs.
So, here’s the question. Does age and experience heighten one’s cognitive insight? Do we become more aware of actions and ramifications as we grow older? Do the scars of longevity outweigh youthful exuberance, or vice versa? As we slow down, as our physical senses become weary and worn, do we gain more clarity of truth and right action?
Maybe. Sometimes. How’s that for an answer? As individuals - and this is based purely on anecdotal evidence - many people do transmute the lessons of the years into a higher state of being. Collectively however, as a nation and as a culture, I suspect we become ever more insensate. Societies peak, decline and fade away, only to be replaced by another system of “civilized” rules and statutes which rarely progress beyond the violent and selfish stupidity of adolescence.
This would appear to be a theorem of history; any erudite and sagacious culture is doomed, and in fact realizes it is doomed. Those societies that build to a state of advanced perspicuity also achieve prescience of their own decline.
In short . . . by the time you’re smart enough to realize you’re on the right road, you also know that some self-absorbed doofus from Never-Never Land is about to pass on a blind curve, driving like a bat out of hell, headed straight down your lane, and wholly ignorant of the fact that the inevitable high-speed mating of radiators is but a nanosecond away.
Survive enough of these incidents and we as individuals eventually (hopefully) learn to be wary of hills, curves, scents in the wind, and that which appears like a bolt from the blue. We learn to paraphrase Copernicus, taking to heart the truism that the world does not revolve around us, acutely aware that the odds of such largesse are infinitesimal. We comprehend the honesty of the phrase “that which is too good to be true, usually is.”
We don’t look gift horses in the mouth, but we check that filly closely, if for no other reason than to ascertain that she’s not of the Trojan variety. We arrive at the conclusion that man’s most perceptive and accurate laws were written by a guy named Murphy,
That’s what we do if we’re smart. Unfortunately, cultures and societies are rarely that. Individuals will only lay their hand on the stove so many times before they realize that red-hot metal equals injury. Nations, on the other hand, battle the same wars for centuries, for the same reasons.
They undertake, time and again, to effect the same ineffectual and unworkable methods of resolution. The technology of attack waxes and wanes, but the intellectual justification behind the conflict is always the same; it’s either a case of “you’ve got what I want,” or “you can’t have what I’ve got.” I seriously believe that the motivations behind every armed conflict in history boils down to variations of those two dubious and parallel rationales.
And, if it wasn’t obvious, those are the rationales most often voiced by spoiled children.
Individuals can learn, of that I’m certain
Governments, on the other hand, never will.