“Look for luck and live the moment.”
When I was a teenager, I was looking at those older than me while they were shaking their heads in disbelief and resignation when talking about “the younger generation”: How irresponsible! How superficial! Nothing is going to come out of them! I was witnessing what was then called “the generation gap”. My generation was “cool”; they, the older ones, were just bitter, judgmental, not progressive enough… definitely not so open-minded as I and my generation were. Then, time has passed. Irreversible, implacable, unavoidable. Those older people are either dead or decrepit or silent. They still have some political opinions and vote, some still have some “weight” and can’t give up power, but most of them left to us the world we see today and then vanished. They passed what they needed to pass to us, the now adult generation.
The photo of this article was taken by me in a clothes shop. It is a silent answer to some haunting thoughts for a couple of months already. “Look for luck and live the moment” it says. That’s the trend. That’s the “cool” stuff now. It’s 60 lei, so about 12 euros. People get dressed in it so as to perhaps make a statement. A statement about the impermanence of both time and values.
As we get older, we shift from the being “ahead of our time” (leftist mentality) to a more traditional approach (the right wing mentality). We seek stability, we seek to continue the chain of life and we need predictability and a certain degree of safety. We no longer experiment with life; we live it. And we don’t live it for ourselves only, but also for our children. Age comes with more responsibilities. Then, age also comes with sickness and death. People die around us, some of them being our friends or relatives. And then we also get sick and we see that we aren’t what we used to be… So, I am biased. Although I still am the same I used to be, I am also a bit more experienced; I have much more experience of being wrong, I failed many more times than my younger members of the human species…
What I see around me, both on the internet, on TV, in the music and political/ideological messages around me, is exactly what writes on this piece of clothing: rely on luck or search for it as a recipe for success and… live in the present moment, implicitly not thinking about the past or the future. And one might ponder (and argue) if the revolt I feel inside while seeing these 2 messages comes from my own generation gap or from the fact that the world of today is making a mistake.
I gave up writing newsletter-size articles when I saw that people no longer read me. My texts were too long and people have lost the ability to follow a text longer than a standard page or a thinking process that lasts more than a couple of seconds. When exploring ideas, one needs to explain oneself and, being aware of the relative shallowness of the audience, one must start from the basis and build up the argument. This takes time and often several pages. It requires patience to read the lines. But a generation that “lives in the moment” doesn’t care about the effort required to read. So I gave up writing, as I was always motivated by the exterior and writing is not something I do for its own sake (I’m an introvert and I can easily speak to myself, I don’t particularly need to talk or write unless there is a need or a “market” for this). Then, there is also a problem with the content of my writings, not only with the length of my texts: I was trying to pass my knowledge or what I understood about this life, so that those reading me could avoid falling in the same traps where I spent years looking for an escape from. And sometimes I was writing about ways of thinking or patterns of thinking (basically critical thinking or how to think), not about specific situations (which were only discussed so as to exemplify). But in a world that is looking for luck, one doesn’t need to build on the past knowledge; it’s only a matter of flipping the coin and seeing if one wins or not, so it has nothing to do with abilities having been previously developed or nurtured.
My entire experience with this life tells me that relying on luck and living exclusively in the present moment are very bad strategies and the world is doomed if it continues on this path. I did this myself when I was younger and I failed. I know for sure that this doesn’t work. One might say that “it didn’t work for me” to which I can reply that “it didn’t work for either of my patients or my friends who did the same”. Also, it didn’t work for some of my family members who have chosen to live unassumed, butterfly-like lives…
At this point in my texts, I tend to begin giving advice or offer solutions. I will stop short of doing this. I am dragged more and more into the so-called “offline world”; it is the new luxury not to have a social media presence beyond a simple contact point (for me it’s this blog). I prefer to read and keep learning at this moment in life, despite these messages about luck and the eternal present moment. I no longer care too much about making a difference, as what is happening in the world is beyond my control.
I am too old for this.
I emppthise with a lot of this, Cezar. We’ve all been through it – I know I have. But I still believe in the slogan on the shirt (I must try and find one…).
Sure, when I was young, I lived each day to the full: work and play, drinking and dancing, whatever the activity I gave it my all with little thought for the future. Hangovers were almost the norm, as were the cuts and bruises and sprains and broken noses from my sporting endeavours. None of them bothered me.
I married, and my life changed. Work no longer became simply a way to pay for my pleasures but morphed into providing a home and safety for my kids. My drinking reduced to a bare minimum, dancing I was never good at so simply dropped it, and my sports interfered with being a dad so that went too. Call it maturity if you wish (it probably was) but it still pained me. Duty is probably a better term.
I kept to that regimen for nearly 50 years (and counting, just) and my kids have grown into citizens and family men in their own right and I am proud of them. A job well done. My youngest two, from my second marriage, are now teenagers, one in his first year at uni, my daughter in her second year at high school, and self sufficient enough to look after themselves (mostly). So I can see light at the end of my time tunnel.
At 71 (next week anyway) I haven’t changed much. My tastes in music and literature have broadened out, become more adventurous. I’m not bothered about watching tv, find today’s cinematic preference for epic comic book crash bang wallop excess or interminable quasi-historic misrepresentations a chore and avoid wherever possible. I’m more politically and socially aware nowadays (and about time too) but equally know that I’m unable to make any kind of difference on my own. But I follow what’s happening in this crazy world, form my own opinions and happily share them: whether I find kindred spirits or receive abuse is not important to me.
I live my life happily, surrounded by people and animals who love me, do the things I want to do as and when I can (mostly after daily chores like washing and ironing and cooking for the family are done) and try to enjoy them all. It’s not hard: I’ve had health issues the last few years, with Covid and Depression, and last year survived prostate cancer – and I feel fitter and healthier and more content than for many a year – possibly even more than ever.
Living for the day – carpe diem – is no longer simply a meaningless phrase to me. It’s the most sensible way to live. I understand how precious life is, and no matter how much time I have left (hopefully another twenty years or so, and do-able according to my doctors) I fully intend to live it to the full. And enjoy every minute!
It was fascinating to read you… Happy birthday for the next week, since you mentioned it! It must have been hard to go through the prostate diagnosis… Someone died in my close family from a different type of cancer and it has simply destroyed any meaning in both his parents and our family… I myself am forever shaken by witnessing someone younger than me taken away from this life in a horrible way; it made me suspect that this life is either ruled by the Devil (just like the Cathars thought several centuries ago) or there is no God at all and everything is random. Experience came with serenity in your case; in mine, it came with restlessness and meaninglessness. Carpe diem is also something I started to do myself following that experience (it’s years now, but we and I cannot “unsee”, forget or heal it), but in the sense that I no longer postpone any pleasure, no matter how small, because I don’t know when my own life might end abruptly (I witnessed first hand how badly it can turn in a blink of an eye). So I’d say that my carpe diem has a very negative motivation, something like “catch and enjoy everything while you can”. However, a different part of me keeps functioning while pretending that everything makes sense, trying to behave properly and do good, but this comes from a personal decision (because it makes me feel good) and not from any expectation of gratitude from anyone, including any blessing from any spiritual power that might or might not exist. In a way, my life is weird and it keeps being like that; for this reason, I do not expect anyone to fully understand me…
I’m glad you enjoyed my response, Cezar. Both of my parents died of cancer, my father at 56 (I was then 19) and my mum at a respectable 79 (and I in my mid 40s), so I guess there was some inevitability in my own case….. Which is not to say it wasn’t a shcok: it was, a huge one, principally because I had suffered not a single problem, no pain or discomfort before it was discovered – and cancer is supposed to be painful! I was lucky, and suspect if had been left another year it certainly would have been, and probably fatal. It was tough year, but I move on. The resilience I get from mum and dad: they suffered far more and bore it all with incredible fortitude, as befits people who lived through the Second Worls War and survived everything that threw at them – my dad serving (and wounded twice) in Burma and my mum as young mum trying to raise two girls alone.
Life can be bitch sometimes, eh? Carpe diem….