HUMAN PLASTICINE: from birth to the grave.
A funny thing happens to you when you retire: you feel like a third wheel and, with that, comes a sense of disorientation and none of direction. Of course, that's not everybody. Some people have definite plans for retirement and the money to carry those out. The others anticipate days they can call their own; no plans, just the freedom to do exactly as they please. It's the latter who have the problem. Who, in life, has had the experience to do exactly what they please?
I'm one of the latter and I keep wondering why I'm not relishing all this free time. I try to tell myself not to feel guilty, to go with the flow. The problem is that there is no flow. You're now in a becalmed canoe and must row. This, however, defeats the purpose of 'going with the flow'. The 'flow' is a gentle current that, like a good television show, carries you along while you relax in your armchair, not a canoe you have to row to move forward.
I think we move into retirement somewhat unprepared and I think that is because of how we are brought up. With the best intentions in the world our parents take one look at that helpless blob of fleshy plasticine that they have produced in an energetic bout of sexual activity and wonder how to make it self-reliant. Heck, they don't want it weeing and demanding food at all hours forever. They must school it, and that's only after they have taught it the rudiments of holding their bowels, walking upright and communicating intelligibly. Added to this, they are sleep deprived and rarely able to engage in sex, can never go out to dinner again without getting a babysitter or have a conversation that doesn't involve weaning or pooing.
Babies, therefore, are brought into this world and are then expected to move forward in a culturally appropriate way and then to fend for themselves. We are primates and yet other primates do not have expectations of their offspring other than the birth, procreate, die cycle. Humans, on the other hand, must attain relevancy in some way. Some humans even boast about their child's accomplishments as if they are their own. A child does not need this. At first the child finds the whole life thing a surprise. For the first seven or so years their only direction about what they're doing in this world comes from the people who brought them into it and who, themselves, have no idea what they're doing.
As young children, we do not question why our parents insist on us doing what we are told. We are put in clothes, told not to run on the road, forced to eat food we'd rather spit out and then kicked out of the house to attend day care, kindergarten, school etc. with a whole lot of other equally dumbfounded and unformed humans. What we make of all this activity is unquestioned, at least until we are about four years of age. If our parents are kind people, we just feel safe and go with the flow.
I figure the sense of repetition and questioning only kicks in at about the age of seven. The sheer tedium of having to get up, get into a uniform then spend six hours sitting at desks learning stuff before we are released to play and the gloss of being new in the world starts to wear off. I know that by age seventeen, my only life plan was to leave school and never look back. Oh, I figured that more was expected of me, I just didn't know or care what. I hadn't yet seen a light of passion for some career. I hadn't grown up poor, even though I had no actual money. I was an adolescent after all. However, my lifestyle didn't see anyone around me scraping to make do, thus providing the motivation to earn a living no matter what I did to achieve it.
My mother's mantra was "Get a degree." She had wanted one, but her parents could only afford to send her brother to university. I felt that a degree was the least that was expected of me, but in what? Due to being unhappy at high school, my sole aim was to leave it, not gain high marks. I got high marks naturally, without studying, so that it became a shock that I fell behind in the last two years of school. Word of advice: when you're too quick, you don't learn to study. My mistake. I still did well, but not enough to do anything I would have accepted as a career. There you go - from squirming baby to choosing a career by age seventeen. You see, we're set on a path we don't chose, with no real knowledge of the world, and meant to know our passion. Bravo to anyone who manages that. There was only one girl in school who had a passion and that was to be an actress. She worked at it through school and went on to become a well-known Australian actress. I admire her for her early passion. So few of us have it so young.
I won't bore you with the details of my university days, dropping out initially and finally getting a minor degree at forty years old. I finally saw what I should have done when I was fifty, but it was too late then. Nonetheless, it's all a journey. Lucky are those who find a path that suits them. I watched my son with complete admiration. He was a real student, happy at school and he would study hard. He earned great marks, chose a career and followed it. The only credit I take for this is that I listened to him and made sure he was happy with his school.
In the end I could not get work at forty after getting a degree that could have provided me with some kind of work. It was hard getting office work at that age too. I ended up driving a taxi for fifteen years, felt humbled, but absolutely loved it. The thing I looked down on gave me the greatest pleasure.
People get a great deal of relevance from their work but then, one day, it stops. Age will stop them; the company will stop them, or their health will stop them. That train track carved into our brains from kindergarten will run out. Given that we've been directed to move forward one way or another from childhood, the end of that track is overwhelming. When you think about it, something has taken the place of our parents all those years, directing us, channeling us, giving us structure. My oldest grandson loves the idea of not having to get up and go to school. I'm lucky. In a way I am but nor can I start a new life or career. I could study, but for what purpose? I can learn on the internet. Years ago, I filled my days applying for jobs and getting rejected but, at least, I had expectations. There is absolutely no point in applying for a job at seventy-three years of age, no matter how fit and compos mentis I am. I still have a future, but there is no structure to it and no expectation.
I now live in the land other people dream of and I'm not really enjoying it. I have expectations but I'm not rich and I wonder how long incessant travel would please me anyway. This is when people with hobbies excel. The passion has to come from within. I do love to write, but I don't do it incessantly. I have to have something to say, and I can wait months to say it. I'm amazed how many people have podcasts now. There's an awful lot out there, but I don't listen. I can't even stand the radio. I prefer my information quiet.
Perhaps parents and teachers are doing the right thing by directing their children. Certainly, they much teach them and give them the necessary tools to survive. We're all just muddling around here on this planet since we emerged from the primal soup. We've still got a long way to evolve. My next fear is that we'll hand over the reins of life to AI and our direction will be taken over by a pre-programmed, non-human entity.
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