On Turning Seventy
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Turning seventy is treated as some kind of accomplishment, even a
notable achievement. Perhaps it is, of sorts—but only in a negative sense. It
means that, for a very long time, mismanagement of my affairs and fairly continuous
application of bad judgment have failed to put a stop to whatever it is I do on
this planet.
I’m generally uncomfortable when receiving compliments, as
they carry the burden of reciprocation. This is awkward, since—in
general—neither I nor the other person are deserving of any particular praise.
I’m especially uneasy when I know for a fact that the encomia are unearned. Acknowledgment
of intelligence is as unsettling (aside from being utterly mistaken) as being
noted for height or eye color. Not one of these qualities is the result of any
effort on anyone’s part.
Being feted for accumulating seven decades of existence is
much the same. So, now that the big day is upon me, I feel only the urge to
hide.
What, after all, have I accomplished? A largish number of
days have passed, without the slightest bit of help from me. Roughly twice as
many as Mozart or Jesus accrued, who—by any reasonable measure—accomplished
somewhat more than have I.
An overabundance of days should not, in itself, be cause for
celebration. All those days represent is a number of complete circuits around a
rather ordinary star, a star notable only for its nearness to a relatively
insignificant planet. The total number of those solar circumabulations—purely by an accident of
evolution—seem noteworthy to us because we imagine they have some numerical
significance. However, that significance is utterly arbitrary. No number, by
itself, means anything—and the fact that one is an even multiple of ten (a
number that gives the impression of being meaningful only because we have ten
fingers, making it easier for counting than some other number) is an anthropocentric
illusion.
If turning seventy signifies anything at all, it is that it’s occasionally possible for one to acquire a degree of perspective (perspective that would have been more beneficial—and saved everyone from a lot of embarrassment—if developed much earlier).
If turning seventy signifies anything at all, it is that it’s occasionally possible for one to acquire a degree of perspective (perspective that would have been more beneficial—and saved everyone from a lot of embarrassment—if developed much earlier).
2 Comments:
Happy birthday, Gary! The big 7-0, wow. I've a bit of a ways to go until I catch up to that, but I know you will celebrate in the finest manner possible.
Relax and enjoy...
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