It bleeds me heart reading some of them mails these past few days. Though a few are having a time of their life, clubbing the clubs and greens, some are having a torrid time at their workplace. Well, life is no bed of roses, mates. I asked an Italian cab driver I was fortunate enough to meet years ago in Preston(a suburb of Melbourne, that is), on why he left Italy, a developed country in Europe with a history that go back to them Romans to a new country that may not promise anything. He said and I quote: 'Life is a one way street without u-turns. We had our chances, our choices and once we had taken that chances and made that choices, just drive on and hope for the best.' I took mine when I came back from Melbourne. I just had to plough on, regardless. Luckily I had you guys. That is always a comforting thought.
Talking about this bitch of a life, I happened to come across two seemingly unrelated articles a few days after our boys night out(BNO). One article discussed about the politics in the UK and the other about the so-called midlife crisis. It dawn upon me that some of the points discussed are quite relevant to some, if not all of us, regardless of the fact that a few are eternally seventeen, at heart. Hahaha
I had once rambled about being nostalgic of the better past (and rightfully told the bitter truth by Chill). Fortunately, or unfortunately for that matter, I am not alone in having these feelings. In fact, almost all humans have been struck by sudden bouts of nostalgia, a repeated harking back to a better time in some indistinct, mythical past. The majority felt that yesterday will always be better than today. Things, it seems, can only get worse.
Nostalgia is as ancient as civilisation. From the very moment man had time to take a break from hunting mammoths to reflect on life, he concluded that the hunting used to be better in the good old days. Them Greeks at their heights were lamenting the demise of a golden era, when men were heroes and the world was more hospitable. Even them Beatles at their prime sang Yesterday.
In his book, The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook observes that although man’s lot has improves over time, he feels consistently worse. He is healthier, wealthier and happier, but convinced that he used to be healthier, wealthier and happier in the past. A sort of romantic primitivism with the belief that a Hang Tuah-like life – killing them Majapahit geeks for fun, screwing all the dayangs he could muster the energy, living off the land – was happier without the Blackberry and golf or Tesco and Pizza Hut.
As modern life becomes more uncertain and confusing, we will always yearn for a secure, imagined past. It is almost as if we looked backward with nostalgia because we could not look forward with much hope.
One dude at the recent BNO was quite worried about the impending midlife crisis as we are entering the forties, the decade often associated with worries about mortality, failed ambitions and sagging midriffs. Or affairs of the heart, for that particular dude, anyways. He, due to karma beyond him, was unwittingly thrown into the so-called midlife crisis, way beyond his time. Heehaw.
Despair do not, Yoda dudes. Scientists claimed this forties thang can be fun, a time for happiness. They have identified an emotional ‘growth spurt’ (not the one on Chill’s mind, though) that makes people more relaxed and easier for others to spend time with (This explains the infatuation that particular female had with that particular BNO dude). Them science geeks are calling this quality ‘agreeableness’ which grows dramatically between the late thirties and early fifties. These findings challenge the notions of a midlife crisis. Arguments persist though between suggestions that one being more in control at work and at ease in family and social lives and suggestions that it is a matter of declining testosterone levels in us. Some also suggest that humans are programmed by evolution to turn inward and protect material and emotional gains after their youthful exertions.
Stephen Joseph, a health psychologist at University of Nottingham(he was at Warwick University then) said that as people come through adversity in their lives, they can become more agreeable, more appreciative of friends and family and are more willing to take part in their community. Life used to be about the next step up the ladder, and getting there quicker than the next person, which caused stress and pressure. As one gets older, the maturity and experience of life enable him to cope better.
Kim Wilde, once an energetic singer of the 80’s, now a garden designer, said recently: ‘I don’t take myself seriously any more. Sometimes I just garden in my knickers just for the fun of it.’ How I wished I was there when she did that. In the 80’s, that is. Heehaw.
So dudes, while immersing in nostalgia might be fun and the forties could be not, at least for those who had not made it big like most of us, take heart. There is a vital distinction between memory and nostalgia. Memory is the link between past and present but nostalgia, by definition, disparages the present; it evokes a time no longer attainable, an idealised, romanticised past that was better, and now irretrievably gone. Nostalgia therefore comes freighted with disappointment, a look back in anger. A seductive and sentimental fib. A deliberate, self-comforting distortion of memory. So as long as our memories and faculties are intact, we should be fine.
Those facts aside, what would a BNO be without some nostalgic reminiscences, eh? It is an emotional comfort blanket to keep buddies warm together though most likely is just an illusion. It should be fun once a while as long as we do not succumb to the self-inflicted sadness caused by revisiting a bright imagined past that makes the present seem all the duller. Or we can just huddle together for warmth other during those chilly pre-dawn sessions at the Bayu beach.
And Chill, we may be sure of this: in years to come, grey and cranky, muttering wistfully over our Nescafe tariks, we will declare of this forties and midlife crisis thang: ‘We never had it so good.’
Talking about this bitch of a life, I happened to come across two seemingly unrelated articles a few days after our boys night out(BNO). One article discussed about the politics in the UK and the other about the so-called midlife crisis. It dawn upon me that some of the points discussed are quite relevant to some, if not all of us, regardless of the fact that a few are eternally seventeen, at heart. Hahaha
I had once rambled about being nostalgic of the better past (and rightfully told the bitter truth by Chill). Fortunately, or unfortunately for that matter, I am not alone in having these feelings. In fact, almost all humans have been struck by sudden bouts of nostalgia, a repeated harking back to a better time in some indistinct, mythical past. The majority felt that yesterday will always be better than today. Things, it seems, can only get worse.
Nostalgia is as ancient as civilisation. From the very moment man had time to take a break from hunting mammoths to reflect on life, he concluded that the hunting used to be better in the good old days. Them Greeks at their heights were lamenting the demise of a golden era, when men were heroes and the world was more hospitable. Even them Beatles at their prime sang Yesterday.
In his book, The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook observes that although man’s lot has improves over time, he feels consistently worse. He is healthier, wealthier and happier, but convinced that he used to be healthier, wealthier and happier in the past. A sort of romantic primitivism with the belief that a Hang Tuah-like life – killing them Majapahit geeks for fun, screwing all the dayangs he could muster the energy, living off the land – was happier without the Blackberry and golf or Tesco and Pizza Hut.
As modern life becomes more uncertain and confusing, we will always yearn for a secure, imagined past. It is almost as if we looked backward with nostalgia because we could not look forward with much hope.
One dude at the recent BNO was quite worried about the impending midlife crisis as we are entering the forties, the decade often associated with worries about mortality, failed ambitions and sagging midriffs. Or affairs of the heart, for that particular dude, anyways. He, due to karma beyond him, was unwittingly thrown into the so-called midlife crisis, way beyond his time. Heehaw.
Despair do not, Yoda dudes. Scientists claimed this forties thang can be fun, a time for happiness. They have identified an emotional ‘growth spurt’ (not the one on Chill’s mind, though) that makes people more relaxed and easier for others to spend time with (This explains the infatuation that particular female had with that particular BNO dude). Them science geeks are calling this quality ‘agreeableness’ which grows dramatically between the late thirties and early fifties. These findings challenge the notions of a midlife crisis. Arguments persist though between suggestions that one being more in control at work and at ease in family and social lives and suggestions that it is a matter of declining testosterone levels in us. Some also suggest that humans are programmed by evolution to turn inward and protect material and emotional gains after their youthful exertions.
Stephen Joseph, a health psychologist at University of Nottingham(he was at Warwick University then) said that as people come through adversity in their lives, they can become more agreeable, more appreciative of friends and family and are more willing to take part in their community. Life used to be about the next step up the ladder, and getting there quicker than the next person, which caused stress and pressure. As one gets older, the maturity and experience of life enable him to cope better.
Kim Wilde, once an energetic singer of the 80’s, now a garden designer, said recently: ‘I don’t take myself seriously any more. Sometimes I just garden in my knickers just for the fun of it.’ How I wished I was there when she did that. In the 80’s, that is. Heehaw.
So dudes, while immersing in nostalgia might be fun and the forties could be not, at least for those who had not made it big like most of us, take heart. There is a vital distinction between memory and nostalgia. Memory is the link between past and present but nostalgia, by definition, disparages the present; it evokes a time no longer attainable, an idealised, romanticised past that was better, and now irretrievably gone. Nostalgia therefore comes freighted with disappointment, a look back in anger. A seductive and sentimental fib. A deliberate, self-comforting distortion of memory. So as long as our memories and faculties are intact, we should be fine.
Those facts aside, what would a BNO be without some nostalgic reminiscences, eh? It is an emotional comfort blanket to keep buddies warm together though most likely is just an illusion. It should be fun once a while as long as we do not succumb to the self-inflicted sadness caused by revisiting a bright imagined past that makes the present seem all the duller. Or we can just huddle together for warmth other during those chilly pre-dawn sessions at the Bayu beach.
And Chill, we may be sure of this: in years to come, grey and cranky, muttering wistfully over our Nescafe tariks, we will declare of this forties and midlife crisis thang: ‘We never had it so good.’
Image by Dave Nestler.
1 comment:
salam singgah. saya link blog saudara.
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