Senectus est natura loquacior (Cicero - De sen. 16, 55) Old age is talkative by nature.
Sometimes it seems to me that I have never completely adapted to almost anything. Not since kindergarten, not elementary school, not in all that music, not even high school, moving from the so-called province to Belgrade, study regime, profession and career - not always, not even individual friends, not even old and "new" loves, like nor married (co)life, children, traveling by plane, abroad... And many other things. On the other hand - which is incomparably less important - I am said to have overcome any anxiety from public appearances, from car rides in heavy storms, and I am less impatient than before both at fishing and at chess games. Also, in reading, and in writing. At some age, many things turn upside down. Unconsciously.
Obviously, with age, joys, surprises and carefree lessons are rarer. Therefore, sometimes you go into your memories: you dream, talk, "scribble" about yesterday, as well as that much earlier, about the living and the dead, about unique, unrepeatable events. And so, in parallel or alternately, it's as if two/three lives are going on. And the past and the fictitious, dreamed as if they were more true than this real one.
Time seems to pass slowly, the days somehow get longer, interests slowly weaken, despite the wish that such a thing does not happen, and energy slowly (h)lapses. Again, it seems to you that the years pass quickly: because, according to the regular course of things, you don't even have many of them left. On the other hand, there are enough of them behind me/you/, many of us, and that number - fortunately, not sorrow and pain! - increases.
And then I'm overtaken by trembling, fear. Out of sixty of them: from the potential illness of the younger ones and those closest to me, from my own loss of sight and/or memory, from the fact that some things will not be completed in the stipulated period, from the fact that some dear characters do not leave my sight, and if they had left earlier, they would never return, that they will live much more modestly. That people will not understand me correctly, that I did not correctly interpret a certain written text or someone's words, messages. Paradoxical or not, I like visiting the cemetery more - except when we are seeing someone off - than staying in the hospital. In the cemetery, it is too hard for the soul, but the state is final, finished, nirvana aligned with the earth and the sky. In the hospital, I am consumed by uncertainty, restlessness, lack of control over the future. "You need to be alive and healthy in order to be sad and desperate in writing, because the sick don't talk about it, and the dead are silent" (Ivo Andrić, Signs by the road).
The presence of our dog saves me from many gray and black things. He restores my hope and élan with his faithfulness, tenderness, rituals, truly noble "animal humanity" which - original humanity - I notice less and less in individuals who should possess it naturally. Descendants cheer me up even more, make me proud, although they also make me sad. My children, ours. Since they start or move away on their path. They move away, literally or figuratively, so that from a distance I get to know them better and love them more and more. And I support... And I understand them in almost everything, although I am far from understanding everything they do. In my growing lack of their presence.
Creativity - if I really have that!? - it seems to me like a kind of unfinished monument that will perhaps outlive me. If what comes out of me is at all a worthwhile novelty. So I wonder about the relationship between so-called wealth and hypothetical wealth, primarily the intangible one. But let others judge that. I am often "haunted" by depth and breadth. Especially their absence. People, phenomenon.
Môre, especially its open sea, is associated with infinity. And that pleases a person when you look from the shore. Especially when the weather is windless, the surface of the water is similar to a mirror, and it transmits, giving rise to concentration in a person. Fullness. Tranquility. Refined thinking. At the same time, I fear the inevitable alternation of beautiful and ugly, happiness and its opposite. But indifference is more dangerous than anxiety. According to reality and people, macro and micro. I'm annoyed by the sentence: "So what, let it". I perceive passivity, silence as a response, as a defeat. Indeed, reconciliation is the worst, if it is at all. Or it is someone's vanity, selfishness, lack of empathy. Everything seems to hint at the end of something, it doesn't have to be exactly biological.
In any case, I believe that he is not there. There really is no end. Death is not the end either - for an individual, concretely, it certainly is - but let's not be so narrow-minded. You live even after someone's death, and that is the most important thing. A voice, a movement, a tear. Life is there, around us, it flows without us. And that's a kind of "keeping in the saddle" trick. Us, others, others. While you can, as long as you can - it's important to be aware of that.
Loneliness. The fruitful one. A free self aware of itself. Loneliness? Someone said, I'm paraphrasing: "If you manage to be alone just once in the right way, you will never be lonely". Admit it or not, everyone is alone, often lonely. The more intelligent, the more self-sufficient, perhaps also the purer, the more refined?!
However, illness is what most find difficult to deal with. Because of weakness, impotence, even more because of unpredictability. Duration and outcome. Finally, you should not be ashamed of compensation. And the lifestyle of each of us is, more or less, a substitute for fulfillment. Often, however, only a surrogate: for a favorable result, for love, for beauty. However, it is good to have some "reserve" for the unfulfilled. And still set high goals: "You want a lot, strive boldly and far and high, because high goals reveal and multiply the strength in us" (I. Andrić). In order to survive spiritually, he continued his physical walk.
How to resist emptiness, alienation and self-centeredness, huge evils of the modern world? Perhaps (and) by constant intellectual improvement, journeys into oneself, to books, to other countries - and measured and selected, non-mercantile socializing. Mestimic and unexfoliated.
And love, that eternal puzzle. Does it even exist? Yes. But not for everyone and not always. Love should not be explained, but nurtured. Just the opposite of crime. (They have /only/ passion in common.) Love - in order to justify that name - would have to have a kind of identity and authenticity. And ardor, even if it's quiet, muted. By the way, lust is nothing to be ashamed of either, unless it is a recurring purpose in itself - and if it is not associated with violence. And what would happen to me if, in the end, I didn't really meet Her? Young and already mature, fearless, caring, above average restless and steady, ambitious and family-oriented. The key is trust and striving for a permanent "living relationship"; towards changes, within the acquired, conquered milieu. The fight against toadstool, staleness, mere routine. Of course, there is reciprocity, but there is no symmetry, it cannot, must not be if you want even a crumb of the magnificent, shining flow of a matrix of which you are a part, which does not take you to an unknown destination - but is such that you progress on its "wings", you grow together with her in the desired direction. You adapt. In addition, emphasized stability is harmful, boring in human relations - in friendship, partnership, family. At the same time, I maintain that harmony is overestimated if viewed statically.
Mistakes? Measured against what, evaluated, in relation to whom? No surrender. After all, (alleged?) failures are a matter of assessment, feeling, subjectivity. It seems (to us) that there were many of them, from the point of view of the (in)opportunities of the time. Maybe too much. And from today's perspective, I want to believe that all those were not gaffes, that in essence they were not the biggest losing "moments", but only bad echoes, tuning of one's own emotional and mental mechanisms. For the upcoming enchanting "gig" of life, a great show. Or are we just imagining, imagining that such an outcome took place?
Road, roads, intersections, detours, wanderings - and time. Decisions are getting harder and less and less expected of me to make them in a timely manner in the time available to me. Well, life is getting faster, more diverse and it doesn't look like the period that I personally considered golden. In fact, time is neither a judge nor an executioner, but both are born or fade in us gradually, moving away (from) life. In fact, over time certain things become clearer, understandable because we perceive less of them. We select them, by necessity. Mental reduction. According to age. In old age. Ranoj, I console.
Multa vetustas limit (Ovid - Ars. a, i647), Age softens many things.
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