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Oliver Sacks, a professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine and the author of many books, has a beautifully written op-ed in the NYT where he reflects on his own mortality and the fact that at 81 he is faced with terminal cancer and a few months left to live. Some excerpts:
"I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.
I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. I shall no longer look at “NewsHour” every night. I shall no longer pay any attention to politics or arguments about global warming.
My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and travelled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gravis on Friday February 20 2015, @02:02PM
My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced.
some of the worst people in politics are actually of the same generation. the Chairman of the Senate Environment Committee is 80 years old and thinks climate change is a hoax. the Koch brothers who are subverting democracy as hard as they can: 79 and 81 years old.
it seems that one's opinion becomes impervious to scientific knowledge and reasoning at around 70.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by CoolHand on Friday February 20 2015, @02:37PM
Not to mention that is the generation that is most firmly still entrenched in the "drug war" that is causing multiple problems in society..
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday February 20 2015, @04:37PM
> some of the worst people in politics are actually of the same generation.
The next generation doesn't have as much practice at it. Give it time and some of them will be the best at being the worst.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Friday February 20 2015, @05:31PM
For a time (when I was younger), I thought, "I will vote for the younger candidate, preferably someone from my generation. They will understand me."
But as my generation is beginning to take over the previous, somehow they have forgotten what it was like to be young, and are the same racist, lying, bastards as our parents. What the hell happened? I blame it on the people in power never really being "one of the people". There is a ruling class in society. That they are split between Republicans and Democrats is just an illusion.
I suppose I am as cynical as my father now.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Friday February 20 2015, @08:25PM
As an older person, I'm glad you got it when young. Maybe you're still young enough to do something. Don't be cynical about things you want/need. Be very skeptical (even to the point of cynicism) about things that others say you want/need. Now go do.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday February 23 2015, @05:27AM
Never to old to do something.
Though I don't expect I will do anything aside from voting and advocating.
Moderate protesters tend to not be terribly effective. Taking a grand stand for reason doesn't work well either.
The worst part is, most of the people I know are somewhere in the middle. I still don't understand why politics are so polarizing when most people are right in the middle.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 20 2015, @08:58PM
But as my generation is beginning to take over the previous, somehow they have forgotten what it was like to be young, and are the same racist, lying, bastards as our parents. What the hell happened?
You never were different. Seriously, why should someone be bad solely because they were born in 1955 instead of 1995?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 20 2015, @06:50PM
Don't forget Rupert Murdoch.
I've often wondered if mortality could be an evolutionary advantage. There's a saying "can't teach an old dog new tricks", and when a new situation arises, we may need a new direction the old dogs won't go. The old disproportionately support conservative parties, which are opposed to change no matter how necessary and beneficial, and cling to the status quo so hard that they are not above dirty pool: propaganda, suppression of research, and sending the young to die in pointless wars. The Republicans have been making asses of themselves in recent times. When their thinking hardens, everyone suffers. They can't see that society changes. My Dad still reaches for the telephone book to find services, never thinks to search online, has never used a search engine. He travels to a bank branch to see a teller inside, won't even use the drive-thru. He writes checks to pay his bills. He's used a GUI for over 20 years, and he still doesn't get it, sometimes "losing" windows (which means he accidentally minimized it, or that he covered it with another window, or occasionally that he really did lose it by closing it without meaning to). At least he does use computers and email. My grandmother would not do even that. The one time I got her to try a computer, I found out that she could not type at all, not even two finger typing. I slowed the repeat rate down to the lowest setting, and that still wasn't slow enough for her. She also resented computers for eliminating accountants' jobs.
One of my CS professors was the sort of old man who was beginning to slip mentally, and compensated by simplifying. New things completely flummoxed him. He could not use a mouse. He was a stickler for obedience to his directions. You did his assignments his way. If you didn't, you could get an F even if you were right. He did grade unfairly in any case, sticking with the first impression he formed of you. If he thought you were a B or a C student, that's the best grade you could get from him no matter how well you really did.
NewsHour? LOL. Run by old men, using the now dated TV broadcast method to reach their viewers, and despite being on PBS, they're a stalwart of mainstream media. And it shows. Though far better than Fox, they don't get it on many issues, such as copyright. They do not portray a realistic picture of the Middle East, leaving viewers with the impression that most of them are just a bunch of crazy jihadis and suicide bombers. They went with the flow during the financial crisis of 2008, intentionally or not supported the narrative that "stuff happens", ya know? The 2012 debates between Obama and Romney were pretty poor. Didn't. Even. Mention. Global. Warming. No, Comedy Central has done a better job of bringing us the news.
Sacks at least thinks Global Warming is important even though he feels he should harbor his remaining time for other things.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 20 2015, @09:27PM
The old disproportionately support conservative parties, which are opposed to change no matter how necessary and beneficial
This happens after you've experienced a lot of unnecessary and harmful change. You start losing your gullibility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 21 2015, @03:37AM
All improvement is change by definition, but not all change is improvement. There lies the problem, too many times the change is useless if not a worsening of the condition, by not really thinking about the consequences as a whole. Humans must start to think beyond the facade.