Changes

Paul Simon's 'The Boxer' is a cry of the '60s, frustration and longing. There's a missing verse - not part of the original; it was added later.

From the S&G Concert in Central Park 1981:

It appears at 1.06:19 

No tickets, no scanning, no queues. I would have loved to have been there

Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin' evenly, 

I am older than I once was

And younger than I'll be, that's not unusual. 

No it isn't strange 

After changes upon changes 

We are more or less the same.

After changes we are more or less the same.

Modern and postmodern societies, especially in our day of massive social and cultural upheaval, are so overwhelmed by the present, they forget the past. After changes upon changes we may may not quite be more or less the same any more. People are running to keep up. I think it no accident that jogging has become popular - it is a metaphor for life itself.

The media are full of stories about AI, the catastrophists and the opportunists vie for our attention, our approving little clicks or our doom-laden prognostications. Wars and rumours of wars are invading our personal spaces. Genders blur. Wildfires sweep Europe, North America and elsewhere, temperatures soar, homes and livelihoods are destroyed, the old die panting in their beds. Change is everywhere and as Bacon wrote – death being the final milestone of change:

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

Climate change is a clear and present reality and we are told that mankind in his profligacy and every increasing mania for progress is responsible so we use terms like ‘net zero’ to reach for the unreachable – a thermodynamic impossibility – propagated by a scientific community both frightened of change and who lack the tools to adequately address the problem without tipping us all into a dystopian dictatorship, enforceable worldwide to drive us into manageable little boxes where the iron gates of politics compel us to not only obey but to love Big Brother. The 1960’s was a watershed, a time when all over the civilised world, the baby was systematically and deliberately thrown out with the bathwater and the roller coaster has been accelerating ever since.

Bacon again:

If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted.

Was Bacon right? Perhaps not quite. One thing modern man has failed signally to do is to learn the lessons of the past. From whom are such lessons learned? The Elders, perhaps, since with age comes wisdom, a trite little phrase that makes young people laugh. The job of the elderly – I am beginning to count myself in this category – is twofold. First, to be – as George Vaillant put it – ‘a keeper of the meaning’. Being a keeper of the meaning means handing on the values of the past to the future. Age brings the reflection and detachment that allows us to stand back and not be swept along by the mood of the moment or passing fashion or the madness of the crowd. We need such wisdom, especially in an age as fast-paced as ours where huge success can come to people still quite young. Examining the careers of recent iconic figures like Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg, we discover that at a certain point they too ran out of steam and turned to older mentors who helped steer them through the white-water rapids of their success. Yet, arguably, their very success has been dependent on bad advice since one might argue, for example, that the meteoric rise of social media has done more harm than good, warping the human crystalline structure, especially to the young and impressionable. The second responsibility of the old is – Vaillant again – the maintenance of ‘generativity‘, to invest one’s substance in forms of life and work that will outlive the self. The Jews do this so very well – the old invest in the young, mentoring and teaching them, both in terms of personal contact and involvement in projects designed to empower them to reach higher. The great example of aging in the Torah is Moses who, at the upper limit of sustainable life – 120 years – was still investing in others, still teaching, still encouraging despite the fact that he himself would not see the conclusion to his life’s effort, entry into the Promised Land. We are told that his ‘eye was not dimmed and his natural energy was unabated‘ in other words, he was vigorous in both seeing the need and energetic in supplying it. The Prince of Egypt gave place to the Lawgiver who gave place to the Teacher. 

He ‘did not go gentle into that good night’. And, neither will I.