Monday, August 20, 2007

Growing up

Some people will inject themselves with botox more and more frequently
Have facelifts more and more frequently
Die their grey hair more and more frequently
Exercise frenetically to keep in shape
Continue to buy clothes that young people buy
and a myriad of other things to deny an obvious fact - that one is ageing.
I accept that some people still "feel young" or have a lot of energy, but what I'm talking about is people who've not grown up, matured, or those whose ego otherwise rests on them being able to do what young people can do. There are a lot of adults who refuse to grow up emotionally and intellectually; others still cling to tooth-fairy-esque notions of God or live in sharp moral worlds inhabited by God and the Devil, cops and robbers and other things.

Wouldn't it be easier to just accept ageing and do so gracefully?
To accept that your role in society and your behaviour will accordingly change?
Wouldn't that make it a little less hard when your turn to die comes? Or are you just preying for a way to reverse the signs of death too?

3 comments:

Eastcoastdweller said...

I'm not afraid of death. Either insensible oblivion, unknowing rebirth or some kind of heaven awaits me. I'm kind of curious about whatever might await me on the other side.

But I am afraid of the long, slow painful road that leads there, of weakening a little more with each passing year, becoming deaf, cloudy-eyed, feeble and wracked with pain.

Eastcoastdweller said...

Eh, I don't believe in a hell except perhaps of one's own recollection of guilt. If there is a God out there, He or She is not going to be in the business of building eternal torture chambers like something out of Dante's Inferno.

Eastcoastdweller said...

Well, the old violent gods have pretty much been relocated to the landfill of history, except for the one dreamed up by Bin Laden and his ilk.

All the people I've known who are closest to the core beliefs of their respective religions -- and I'm not talking freako fundamentalists, who are just insane -- are the kind of people least interested in judging, condemning and hurting others.

So why would their God be any different?