- Playing my favorite ukulele, c. 2008
Posting 100 was my attempt to take stock, to make sense for myself of where matters stand – in my blog IN THIS MY 70th YEAR, and in my life.
It remains to draw conclusions. What are the main features of this human condition of ours? What is the nature of this loneliness we experience in the face our the unavoidable end, the onset of stagnation, the end of consciousness and the return to oblivion?
1. The decline in physical intimacy
Barry Dicken’s book Unremitting Sadness is a moving account of depression and its treatment in Australia. There is a moment at the every end of the book that will speak to every aging man, and perhaps every aging woman. He writes:
‘One of the aspects of aloneness that is unbearable in never to be touched. The intimacy of being touched is almost beyond my remembrance these days as I go to bed alone and always sleep alone, dream and nightmare alone, never being kissed by anyone else and listening to one’s breath … To be willingly kissed and caressed and kidded and made love to without ever tiring is what I am after each day without success.’
This is one aspect of aging that I dread.
2. The sharp reminders of physical decline
I have been lucky till now. The only real pain I suffer comes from arthritis in my wrists, but as time passes … With this awareness at the forefront of my mind I have, in the past couple of weeks, resumed walking every day and eating more sensibly.
3. How little we truly know …
Events of the past three years have reinforced my sense of how little I truly know and understand. This applies in every aspect of life, from how electricity works to how things occur in the quantum world, to the stories of my life. In his book Religion for Athiests Alain de Bouton makes much of human forgetfulness. We can ‘know’ things but then later completely forget what we knew.
Part of the problem is the doutfulness of many of our sources. I can testify – passionately – to the unreliable nature of the stories we are told. IN my family – and perhaps in all families – there are hidden agenda, secrets, half truths, matters that can never be discussed …
This universe, this Earth, these people who from my social network … their complexities mock my small wisdom with their vast design.
4. There are two things we can be certain about, two things that are unavoidable: Death and taxes…
Life is so resilient and yet so fragile. We do know, howefver, that – in time – the Great Earth, with neither grief nor malice will receive the tiny burden of our deaths.
5. Anonymity
Few of my fellow creatures will know – or care – that I once walked this earth.
Erik Eriksen saw our lives as passing through a total of eight phases. Each phase of what he called psychosocial development was charaterised by a particular ‘task’ that the person must effectively navigate:
i. Trust V Mistrust
ii. Autonomy V Shame and Doubt
iii. Initiative V Guilt
iv. Competency V Inferiority
v. Identity V Role Diffusion
vi. Intimacy V Isolation
vii. Generativity V Stagnation
viii. Ego Integrity V Despair
At nearly 70, I have coped well, I think, with Stage 7. I continue to be a highly productive, creative person. Stagnation has not been very evident in my life from 50 till now…
I leave a legacy of stories and other writings.
What does this legacy show?
That I am whistling in the dark.
That I am kept busy putting little holes in the tops of toothbrushes.
That I am seek ego integrity in an effort to avoid/avert despair …
I am sitting in my cave (it was, you will see at once, also Plato’s cave). There are shadows are dancing on the cave wall in front of me. I know them to be shadows; they are not reality, they merely point to what might be… And I am scribbling away, trying to make sense of dancing shadows, with the voices whispering in my ears that this is all folly.
And what if nobody reads these words? What if the product of these hours I have spent are never read?
In the end, what will it matter?
Well, when I am dead and gone – one minute, five minutes, a week, a month, years, three decades from now – what will I care anyway? I will have nothing with which to care. No consciousness, no awareness, no vital signs. I will be dust. The atoms and molecules that chanced to come together to create just these hands, just this hair, these legs, this brain will have dispersed across this amazing universe.
Perhaps they may have even travelled into another, very different universe …
So, my rules for living are:
1. Always look on the bright side of life … You came from nothing, you going back to nothing – so, what have you got to lose? Nothing!
2. To remember that we’re standing on a planet that’s eveolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour …
3. To pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, cos there’s bugger-all down here on the Earth.
What better way to end this blog than with the full lyrics of the song that ends The Life of Brian:
Always look on the bright side of life
words and music by Eric Idle

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best…
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And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…
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If life seems jolly rotten
There’s something you’ve forgotten
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you’re feeling in the dumps
Don’t be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle – that’s the thing.
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And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…
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For life is quite absurd
And death’s the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin – give the audience a grin
Enjoy it – it’s your last chance anyhow.
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So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath
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Life’s a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true.
You’ll see it’s all a show
Keep ’em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
And always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the right side of life… (Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the bright side of life… (Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life… (I mean – what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing – you’re going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life…
Always look on the right side of life…