Almost there...

I just found this article in The Guardian. It’s about how people feel these days when they turn fifty. Since I am one of those myself, I was interested.

There are a lot of things said there that fit me completely, so read the article, it will save me much repetition. I am ‘creaking’ much less than most people do, though. I could have creaked much less too if God had allowed me to live a more vigorous lifestyle, but I count my blessings, and try not to crib. However, I don’t like people who joke about getting old, for a number of reasons: firstly, it’s not a crime; secondly, though I have been referring to myself as ‘the old man’ in my classes for a decade now, fifty is not that old, when there are so many busy people around in their late seventies and even eighties; thirdly, one grows old only because one has lived long and worked hard and done a lot of things for a lot of people, which is something to be proud of, not ashamed about, especially if they have done good things for people outside the family; fourthly because even in this day and age one does usually acquire qualities of a non-trivial nature, such as poise, self-possession, clarity of thought and equanimity, which youth is not distinguished for; fifthly because, as I have said before, I was in a sense forever ‘old’, sixthly because only those who are mentally teenagers think they are going to stay that way forever, and therefore cannot feel any empathy. I wish them luck with the botox injections, anti-depressants, tummy tucks and late night orgies which are going to become increasingly indispensable as they try to cling on in vain to passing youth for a little longer. So many like that are already in their forties and fifties!

About this blog – which I have called an extension of my classroom – the pageviews figure bothers me. No non-celebrity in as ‘boring’ a profession as teaching gets that kind of score. And so I wonder: who are those who are listening to me, who have learnt things that matter from me, whose lives have become better in a lasting sense because of me? Too many people assure me I should count them in, but then all too soon they seem to forget, and revert to saying silly things, or contradicting themselves, or irritating me, or actually hurting me after promising not to, and I get back to wondering ‘Have I ever taught anybody anything at all, or has this whole life gone in vain? Has it just been a bit of money in the bank after all? Have I even been able to teach anybody how essential it is to give basic courtesy to people I claim to like and respect, not just expect it from them?’

I have been going through parts of the incredible amount of correspondence I have had with an enormous number of people over the last decades. So many of them told me ‘You matter to me… I shall always want you to be around’, and talked so much with me so intensely for a time – which sometimes stretched for years – and then vanished completely from my life. Do people really have anything called memory? Do they ever listen to themselves? Do they ever feel bad about how they have treated someone who tried to care so much for them once upon a time? Do they have any idea of the weariness and futility that weighs me down after all these years? Is it really very difficult for those who say they love me to figure out why I feel this way? 

For newcomers as well as old timers, it might be well to look up the post titled 'What sort of person am I? ', the link to which is fixtured on the top of this blog. Nothing written therein has changed, nor do I have any intention of changing anything. Read especially carefully the very last paragraph. Maybe it will help some people to understand better why I am writing in this vein now. 

As someone was telling me, this year almost all my blogposts have been connected by a common thread. It’s called pain. I wonder how many others have noticed it, and to how many of them it mattered, as in making a mark on their minds. It has been a tumultuous year, a year of great changes, and now it is rapidly drawing to a close. Is there a little happiness in store for me somewhere? Do I dare hope?