managing oldness

After my previous post, on managing newness, I figured it begged for this: managing oldness. You could make a strong argument that I should reissue the "managing newness" post virtually unchanged, and just view it as intended for "oldness"?

What difference would it make?

But that's merely postmodern cleverness, or a simulacrum of it.

Managing oldness.

That would refer to accepting life's limitations, such as memory lapses or confusion, and alterations in physical strength and endurance, and reduced motivation blah blah blah, and accepting that life itself is limited, as opposed to the invincible and robust notions of never-ending youth.

But I'm not even sure of that. To quote Bob Dylan, in "My Back Pages":

 "Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

My best and most prolific work came after I was 50.

ashes dust zen et cetera

Is there any day more than Ash Wednesday that Buddhism and Christianity are closer in medium and message?

Christians receive ashes, as a sign of mortality and repentance. As for the mortality aspect, is it not akin to the impermanence that Zen Buddhists practice?

Various Christian denominations impose ashes on the forehead with these words spoken, or some variation of them, from Genesis 3:19:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

And then many walk around the rest of the day with ashes on the forehead, sometimes in the shape of a cross.

For me, it typically raises a quandary: wash them off or not? In other words, am I "bragging" about some sort of piety that I do not possess? Jesus warned against such strutting. But eventually the ashes need to get washed off, lest one's pillow become all ashy.

Is this a bleak day, a somber reminder of our mortality? I posit it should not be. I further suggest that Buddhists among us (sometimes I strut and pretend I am one, though "practice" is the only membership card, is it not?) would smile. They would not have to say anything.

A mindful Ash Wednesday (or Ash Monday, Ash Tuesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Friday, Ash Saturday, or Ash Sunday) would be occasion enough to smile.

mortality

This just in, from the L.A. Times, reminds me of my 2007 post on the untimely and tragic death of cosmologist Jeffrey Willick and other thought-provoking matters:

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say a 66-year-old man eating breakfast at a California fast-food restaurant was killed when a vehicle plowed through the corner of the building.

El Cajon Police Lt. Jeff Davis says the man was sitting in a front corner booth at a Carl's Jr. in San Diego County on Sunday morning when a Honda CRV slammed into the restaurant.

The 74-year-old driver, a resident of El Cajon, was taken to a hospital with moderate injuries.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. A witness told officers it appeared the SUV was going 45 to 50 mph.

The restaurant is closed as officials determine the structural integrity of the building.

The Root of the Matter

Can pain be pictured? I would invoke the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, as well as legions of others, not just Russians.

I would add: Just think of a would-be-serious journalist being forced to cover, say, the adventures of Britney Spears. Pain. Or ballet dancers performing en pointe avec une cracked toe. Douleur. Or having to endure my withering repartee because you share the same roof. Schmerz. The list goes on.

But indulge me.

Picture a molten spike lodged in your lower-left jaw.

Or a kilowatt of humming voltage resonating through your maxillary apparatus.

Try brittle bamboo shoots forced under your gums.

They tell me it's a root canal I need. (How prescient your most recent comment is, Wanderlust Scarlett!)

Look. I don't care if it's a root canal or an extraction or trepanation, but please just do it, willya!

Thank you.

Tomorrow. 0900 hours.

Be there. Or give me the gas pipe.

At certain moments, even the codeine is feckless. Is this a preparation for the Big Pain? The Ultimate One? If so, we (especially me) are failing wretchedly in this household, except for Brown-Eyed Girl.

BULLETIN: I hereby proclaim The Laughorist blog to be the only blog in the blogospheric universe to cite both Fyodor Dostoevsky and Britney Spears in the same, um, mouthful, so to speak.