Only the good die young

But dying is ‘having a moment”

I’m a shade over 70 years old.

But it seems that people, ideas and institutions that I thought would be around forever – or at least a lot longer – are dying all round me.

And it’s not just what I had once considered “old” people; the word “old” referring to those about five years older than myself, of course.

But no, even young people seem to be dying – or acting like “old people”. But it is not just humans that are evaporating or losing their energy, it is even what I used to think of as “new” or even semi-permanent concepts or beliefs – like literacy. Or books. Or long-established categories of music.

In the realm of music, for example, not long ago, basic categories of music from Baroque to jazz to blues to “world” music seemed to coexist and mix freely and absorb, adapt and forever shift into new and ever-changing textures and inspirations.

Current music seems to be rootless and soulless – and whether “human” or not, has the sense of spectacle-driven, repetitive, machine-created, marketing “vibe” to it.

Maybe artists and musicians really do need to suffer.

It might be the case that we don’t have something to say until we have our voices threatened.

Perhaps philosophers and prophets need to be persecuted and murdered.

Maybe there is something about being hounded and shamed that makes the truth ever more refined.

For many years now, I have had a persistent and haunting sense that I need to learn something before I die.

It is something specific, and something I must encounter and comprehend, before my time on earth is finished.

I don’t know exactly what it is, but I am convinced that I will know it when I see it.

I have searched histories and cultures, philosophies and faiths, indigenous and industrialized societies and traditions.

I know it is there. Somewhere.

I wish I had a voice over me saying “warmer, warmer…colder….cold”.

But I can’t seem to tell when I am close to – or far from what I am looking for.

And, even when I am not “looking”, I am still looking.

I have been taking a close look behind the scenes, between the lines and at the implied or obscured words and meanings behind or around the phrases, signs and hints that seem to flow like active particles all around us.

Alongside this flurry of ideas and possibilities, lies of course, death itself.

From ancient microbes and plagues to modern futuristic additives, gadgets and devices, everything seems to be united against those who are attempting to live. No matter the cost.

Many people I encounter, young and old and everyone between, seem transfixed by distractions.

Maybe they believe, without putting it into words, that if they are busy enough, life’s immensities and ultimate realities will pass them by, that enough noise and ephemera will shield them from the hard and fast boundaries that seem to shrink around us like some kind of sci-fi web that we can’t see, but some of us can feel.

It’s not as if truth, decency, compassion and basic human authenticity have evaporated, it is more like we have created a candy-colored armored shell around us that somehow keeps us immune from realities that every human being before us took for granted, embraced and embodied.

They would not have put words or labels on it. And we can’t either. We just know, if we are willing to open our eyes, that we just don’t have it.

You won’t find it on a device, or in a “hack”, or available online.

It is at hand, between, among and within us, like some kind of amorphous membrane connecting us all, yet visible to no one.

It is easily broken or obscured – but not permanently.

It will last far longer than any of us.

And the fact that we can’t name it, claim it, own it, buy or sell it, only confirms that in some strange way it is more real than we are; more solid, more eternal, and yes, even more vivid and tangible – and inescapable.

Just as there is not much “finding”, there is also no avoiding.

Flashing and flickering distractions can only last so long. And once they lose their allure, they probably won’t get it back.

Everything old is new again – and everything IS old

It would be easy to make the argument that everything is – and forever will be – a remake, a re-mix even, of what has come before.

But in the flash and flutter of devices in our hands, and endless pulses, beeps and chirps, we lose track of what it is that MAKES everything new; our hands, our eyes, our visions and impulses – and, perhaps most of all, our use of tools that, in one way or another, have always accompanied human beings as we have faced challenges and the everyday bafflements of existence.

We humans create and destroy, give birth and fight or deny death, but those systems and rhythms surround and inhabit us and they speak to us relentlessly – and we, some of us at least, listen to them – occasionally.

We in the first quarter of the 21^st Century tell ourselves that we can accomplish, or measure or control anything and everything.

But I would argue that we can’t control anything – really.

Who of us can say that we have even the most basic control of our own impulses, moods or most fundamental health?

Or even pets or children or neighbors?

Or who, when it comes to anger, substance abuse, sweets or a dozen other categories exercises anything like self-control?

Maybe it’s not that young people or new ideas actually die, but that we lose our ability to see and hear them.

Paying attention, listening and recognizing and developing a taste for what we haven’t encountered before takes energy and focus, and few of us have the energy and focus we once had.

Many people I know are feeling old before their time due to recent circumstances. I would make the argument that we need young people – their energy, their vison and their reminder that, no matter how weary that some of us might get, the world – and its challenges and promises – will pass into younger hands.