Depressingly Inspirational

A new required school assignment?

If I ruled the world (always my favorite way to start a sentence), all teens would be required to watch online clips from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Then they would have to watch clips of the inductees from when they were, as we say, in their prime (i.e, young). My goal here would be to maybe, hopefully, desperately try to convince young people for the first time in human history that youth does not last forever. These foxy hip young rock stars who made everyone dance are now these old people with gray (thinning) hair—if they are lucky enough to still be alive.

I would offer this lesson as proof positive that humans age. Yes, they indeed do, despite all the media hype and cosmetic surgery bills, everyone gets old. Not only that, you will not be an exception. You will not sit back and eat chocolate forever as you watch everyone around you grow old while you stay the same. Profound stuff.

“You’re as young as you feel?” Well yeah, kinda sorta. But my lower back may beg to differ, as well as that increasing ache in my right shoulder. I brought these matters up to my doctor, who gave it to me straight: I am getting older.

Only a few weeks ago I wrote in this very blog about denial of aging amongst Baby Boomers. But as so often happens in my life, no sooner did I see a problem in others than did I see that I had the same problem. Such humbling insights sometimes are called gifts. Gee, thanks, Santa.

Despite a strong identification with the youth culture of my era, I’ve always had a sense that I’d be happier the older I got. I recall being frustrated that I wasn’t in the popular crowd in seventh grade (or was it eighth?) because I knew that this particular social arrangement would not last forever. Who was or was not popular would have nothing to do with “real life.” (Marriage, kids, etc.) But premature wisdom, like so many other premature things (I am thinking of one in particular) can be a burden. Envying others for a quality that you simultaneously know doesn’t matter is not exactly a self-esteem builder. Not only are you unpopular, but you know you are stupid for wanting to be popular. 

In any event, my teen years were happier than me pre-teen years, my twenties were happier than my teens, and so on. And I’d like to believe anyway that time also has improved my character, though those of you with evidence to the contrary will be paid off as always to maintain your silence. (Your checks are already in the mail.) By “happy,” I don’t just mean technically anti-depressed, but feeling a sense of purpose, that life makes sense, I gained from my challenges, and all that type of stuff.

We live in an era in which nothing is supposed to faze us much. One should vote and have opinions, but at the same time take nothing going on in the world—or our lives—too seriously. Stop and smell the gladiolas, or however it goes. Unhappiness, depression, existential crises . . . all these things do indeed suck when you’re going through them. But it’s pretty hard to walk along the path of life without stepping in some you-know-what from time to time. And this is without getting into things like losing a loved one, or having serious physical or mental conditions.

I sometimes show my students a video about the press coverage in the wake of 9/11. Many hundreds of people trapped in the World Trade Center had to decide whether they preferred dying from fire or from hurling themselves out the window. But this unimaginable horror was not featured in the media. Instead we chose to call it a day of heroism, a day of coming together as a nation. I do not doubt that some of this was strategic—it is politic for a nation under attack to present itself as stronger than its attacker. But I think some of it, too, was just that we do not enjoy pondering tragedy. Or maybe what I mean to say is of course no one wants to dwell on tragedy, but we have lost our ability to handle it as it inevitably comes along. If it is “too depressing” to come to terms with our own mortality, vulnerability, and impermanence, what are we supposed to do instead?

I just saw a play in which there was a line that went something like: If nothing were painful, nothing would matter to us. Pain often is how we know something—or someone—was important in our lives.

So yeah, it is at best bittersweet for me to look at these young rock and rollers and then see them in their retirement years, even when they seem to be wise, contented people who appreciate being honored. It pains me because it reminds me of my own mortality, and my own youthful follies that I have long since discarded (i.e., precious time wasted over nonsense). For many years I could listen to the music from my hedonistic youth and feel swept up in the memory of the, uh, party or whatever you’d call it. But it is getting to where I don’t want to hear certain oldies. The gap between the moment of youth and now has become too wide. I barely recognize the kid who rocked out to that song.

Fall semesters I teach a class for first-year college students in critical thinking—how to think more deeply and look beyond the surface of key social issues. But I may just add the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in my list of assignments. I’d like to know how tomorrow’s leaders feel about their own mortality, and if they can comprehend that life is too short.