A chance return to an all-time favorite song (The Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits) got Bill thinking about the extraordinary life he has led… which got him thinking about the extraordinary life ALL of us have led, here in a Land of Wonder and an Age of Everyday Miracles.
Listen here on Soundcloud:
Fear is a survival trait. Normal, justifiable fear has become corrupted. Rather than the absence of things to actually be afraid of and do something about becoming a cause for gratitude, fears about the wrong things have been invented. I honestly don’t know if that could have been avoided. In order to prioritize what should and should not be feared a sense of scale is vital. It’s very difficult to get that sense of scale until you experience the things that will instill it in you. Just as you don’t know the real measure of pain or hardship unless you… Read more »
Two points: 1) If you liked this episode, you’d love a book by Steven Pinker: Enlightenment Now. Easiest way to “consume” the gist of that book is to watch his Ted Talk, which I’ll link below. One of his opening lines is “Nothing is more responsible for the ‘Good Ol’ Days’ than a bad memory.” Bill, I urge you, in particular, to find the time to at least watch that video. https://youtu.be/yCm9Ng0bbEQ?si=knk7KvSfJHkCsN5n 2) Scott, as a recently retired physician, I must share with you that while I agree with all of you about the main premise of this segment, the… Read more »
To your point #2 … I’ve known this for decades and avoid your profession as much as I can thereby. This is probably not optimal for my health but if you can’t trust your doctor then you can’t and now in my old age I’ve yet to find one I trust professionally. A truly ethical, altruistic doctor who strictly adheres undeviatingly to the Hippocratic Oath has become a very rare bird. Industrialized health care only exacerbates the problem. My remedy, again perhaps not optimal, is to not believe a damn thing a doctor tells me unless I’m already up on… Read more »
My Grandparents lived from traveling on horseback or buckboard to seeing man walk on the Moon …. that lifespan has to be truly tough to beat!
We are the inheritors of that progression!!!
A very older and wiser Mark Knopfler reflecting on the importance of playing Sultans of Swing true to the recording……. His wife remarking on a performance, “Did you play the tiddly bitz?”
https://youtu.be/leZ4T8kt-1o?feature=shared
My grandfather was born in Greece in 1894 and was a goat herder until the age of 16 when he came to the US. He worked in a coal mine in southwest Wyoming, actually he went in far enough to where he could no longer see light from outside and he turned around and left. Next he went to work in a restaurant for a short time before he started working on a section gang for the Union Pacific Railroad. There he worked his way up to section foreman and spent 53 years keeping the railroad running across southern Wyoming.… Read more »
What a wonderful way to look at things. I am still trying to prep for what is coming, including if it is just more of the same. And more wonderful.
Being of a ‘certain age’ now I see many of those in my generation turning sour. We’re the generation who never wanted to grow old, but we seem to have developed into the proverbial cranky old person nonetheless! It’s easy to fall prey to fear, anger and resentment. If you focus on the bad stuff, doom and gloom are about all there is, but I know that’s not true. We Baby Boomers certainly made our mark on things, and it definitely is a very mixed track record. In spite of it all, we still have not managed to totally destroy… Read more »
Janet, I just got my Medicare card. That must make me the very very last of the boomers. Funny you mention complacent…our high school motto in 1974 was….
Apathy. I’d have put an exclamation point at the end, but we just weren’t that excited about apathy…..
I totally agree with you the need to be grateful, and share that message often with others of our “vintage” as well as our kids and their kids….
As a loyal member of the Class of ’73, I can relate! I can remember practicing my best deadpan expression in the mirror so that I could make it oh so clear to my ancient parents (in their late 30’s!) of just how deeply unimpressed I was by their attempts to communicate their out-of-date ideas. I cringe at one photo of me with my family in particular, where I’m standing pompously aloof from everyone else. No telling how much fun I missed out on that day while I was working so hard to maintain my superiority! Fortunately both my parents… Read more »
I’ve been saying this for years. We’re a generation of cultural trust funders who’ve known peace and prosperity for so long that we’ve deluded that those are the norm and not the exception. And I have a bad feeling that we’re about to learn otherwise
I love your description, “a generation of cultural trust funders”. So true! Thank you for that.
Good times make weak men…
When I was a teenager, I marveled that my grandmother was born into horse and buggy travel, coal-heated house, and very early electrification of cities. She got to see the moon landing and elementary computers. But her generation had the worst two wars imaginable. One of the many things that makes our generation the most fortunate is the serendipity of how medicine advanced from a couple of antibiotics and not much else to normal people expecting to have new knees at 75, expectations of surviving cancer, and getting dental implants if a tooth is lost. Of course, the next generation… Read more »