If
you’ve read my posts, you might have noticed a fixation about the ‘stickiness’
of negativity. I feel like I hold onto the bad stuff more than I hold onto the good
stuff. In fact, I used to define myself as a hopelessly ‘realistic’ until I was
having a few beers with a buddy at a conference. I was talking about my mom’s funeral, and I remarked
how it was hard to imagine anyone being more jaded than me. He gave me an
incredulous look and responded, “What? You’re crazy! You’re the most positive
person I know!”
I
was so stunned at first that I didn’t even argue, but it made me rethink
things. Made me get out of my own skin and really start listening to what
people were saying, to see how often bitterness broiled beneath a veneer of
happiness. It startled me to really see the baggage people were carrying as
they aged. I just missed it all, I guess, while I was celebrating my own
cynicism. The little laugh when another wedding’s announced. The awkward pause
when talking about a daughter out west. But it left me with another bigger
question: Is there something ‘natural’ about reverse-evolving into a
curmudgeon? I can’t help but feel like the answer is “Yes.”
That may not be a bad thing. I finished reading Middlesex
about a year ago, and one line from the book really stuck with me: “Everyone struggles
against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It’s the thing that
lets us say goodbye.” On a long
enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to 0. In an evolutionary
sense, it’s only natural to welcome that next big step when things start to
fall apart, right?
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| The corollary to the "you're bitter when you're old" theorem is "you're sweet when you're young" |
To be honest, thinking about the quote really made
me feel better about how things were with my parents as they moved on. I feel
like I spent a lot of time trying (and failing) to make them happier as their
health started to deteriorate. They resisted, and seemed to embrace all the
negativity in a way that left me feeling utterly hopeless; but at the ends of
ends, there wasn’t regret or fear, just a readiness that maybe I wasn’t willing
to accept, but they certainly were.
Now, the complication for me relates to a quote from A Game of
Thrones: “Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.” If you buy that there’s something hardwired into us such that we’re
more willing to move on, what are the implications of modern existence where
you don’t really need to be able to kill bears to survive? Have you ever seen
the “Uncle Frank Tribute” from Jimmy Kimmel Live? At some point, Uncle Frank
remarks, “I’ve done more in these years, fun-wise, than I’ve ever done in my
life.” He was in his 70s when he made that remark, and I’m sure it’s not
exaggeration. There are possibilities in old age now that didn't exist in the past, possibilities to make the world a better place not just for our friends and relatives, but society as a whole. Will we, as a species, rewire to focus on the joys of living?
Maybe Uncle Frank went reluctantly, terrified and screaming, as he moved on to other things. I doubt it. Was he an exception to a rule? I’m at that age where my friends’ parents are all ‘being difficult’ as they break down physically. Do I tell them that it’s only natural, or do I try to convince them to fight?
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| Uncle Frank was pretty buff in his 70s |
