old fart – Dreamyoga

…never look a gift horse in the mouth

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I’ll speculate that there is a good chance that I might be perceived as a quasi-Jurassic old fart.

The estate agent recently said that we had a lot of DVDs just like his parents. I do not know most of the protagonists in Wimbledon, I have no idea what music “stars” are popular with the exception of Taylor Swift, on celeb Goggle Box I have no idea who some of them are and I could not name more than a few of the Labour party cabinet. I recognise a few players in the England cricket team and am perhaps the most up to date with northern hemisphere rugby. I do not use a smart ‘phone and have never done “face time”.

Science fiction can predict with sometimes uncanny accuracy future trends. The detailed match is not exact but the scoping predictive. We have Orwell’s 1984 and now webcams and microphones driven by fibre broadband in most homes. The Trumpian “ministry of truth” publishes edicts to millions over the internet. The propaganda wars are on. We have the “new-speak” of wokeism and offence at pronoun use.

In the film “Logan’s Run” the young and the beautiful have an expiry date before they go to “Dignitas” for recycling. When the time comes, they are expunged. Everyone must be young and sexy and beautiful. Fat crippled old men are not allowed. Books are an antique artefact of the past.

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Now you can get Turkey teeth, a Brazilian bum lift, liposuction, a bionic penis and a designer vagina. You can get lip filler so that you look like a pollock who has bitten a stinging jellyfish and get plastic bags full of chemicals sewn into your tits. You can take weight loss drugs instead of heroin to lose weight. And of course you can buy Sino-Mexican fentanyl at bargain basement prices for a few pesos.

Not all “progress” is uplifting or good.

There is a tendency to throw the baby out with the bath water.

The summer of 2003 was pivotal for me. I had just gotten divorced and went on a PADI advanced open water diving course, on my own, at Sharm El-Sheikh. I was partnered with a young woman who was intelligent and a cardio-fit dentist. She was also a fairly high level rower, only a little younger than me. She was on holiday with others of the rowing “Henley” set and there was some talk about some of them preparing for Olympics. She represented two things I did not understand, the choice of dentistry as a profession and competing in rowing. I could not and still cannot understand dentistry as a profession. Yes, it relieves pain and is financially viable but isn’t it a tad repetitive and boring.

We got on fairly well and worked OK as a team. We were both a bit anxious. It turned out that she was single and looking to change that. I understood that she was attractive according to how these things are perceived. I saw her mostly as my diving partner. She talked a lot. Then one day on the bus she looked at my recent root canal work, which was not up to scratch according to her professional opinion. I knew at that moment her orientation towards me had changed from mild interest to “no, this geezer has bad teeth”. There was a slight cooling on her part. I had been scratched off a mental list.

When we finished the course, I climbed Mount Sinai on the night before my birthday and saw dawn of my birthday atop said hill. It was for me a truly transcendent experience. Something very powerful started that day and I was “off my trolly” for most of the journey back to London.

In this inane example she looked in my mouth and did not like what she saw. A perception was based on a single variable. It was a show stopper for her.

Nowadays where everybody has to be plastic-fantastic with their own PR and propaganda anti-social media platforms it is difficult to find a non-embellished reality. The drive to subscribe and adhere to a faux-perfection is said to be a driver for poor mental health. It is difficult to know who or what we really are or may be.

Cosmetically my appearance to the young is not appealing. I have yellowing teeth with several gaps. I am portly and hirsute. My below belt grandpa-garden is untended. I have not had a crack back and sack, ever. My teeth, which remain, are my own. There is no dental mortgage. I do not dress fashionably and I waddle when I walk, like a duck. I have never had an umbilical cord to my iPhone or Galaxy. If I were to attempt to type a text it would be snail pace and error strewn. I am a bumpkin, a yokel even pikey. I have zero power or kudos by association

I am in a package which would be unappealing, no doubt some might seek to educate me and bring me up to date. Were I to have things to share and impart, many would not be able to see past the gift wrap.

“What can that crippled old man with gappy yellow teeth possibly have to offer me? He is such a success, he has done so very well for himself, not.”

How we are perceived may differ substantially from how we actually are. People can squander opportunity based on prejudice about how things ought to be…

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…beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

I have recently had a several months stint on LinkedIn. Because I am an “old fart” I went to university way back when it was much less common in the UK. My class size was of the order of 30. It was hard to get in. There was an in-department tea / snack room which served buttered toast. After a 9 AM chemistry lecture you could get coffee and toast and marmalade. We knew each other quite well and there was a lot of fraternisation between staff and students. Back then there was a lot of booze. It would be frowned upon today, Jurassic behaviours.

It is safe to conclude that when taking the integral of life time earnings of most of my university peer group, based on their LinkedIn profiles, I am at the bottom of the earnings table and I am not going to earn any more. I was the baby of the class being born end of August, but somehow also a social lynch pin. 4 out of 30 came from my school. Most of my peers have been successful whereas my “career” ended in 2007. I did some small “A” level science tutoring for a number of years. I retired around five years ago. Often it is the years 40-65 when people earn the most. I did not.

It could be said that I am a failure and that I failed.

I worked for over a decade as an academic at a top London university. Many of that peer group and people whom I once taught have had and are having way more success than me. There are big cheeses.

There are a number of possible explanations for why I quit at the age of 42. They include burn out, the so-called INFJ door slam, some mental health problems, or the renunciation of a way of life. I was very unhappy that my colleagues were talking about getting rid of people to improve the REF rating. Nice! I figured I could handle going better than others. The decision was quick and nobody anticipated it. I don’t recall having any discussions. I did not have a leaving party because I hate that kind of thing. I handed over my responsibilities and just left. Not many, very few, said goodbye. I thought at the time that it was handled poorly. British people can be awkward and scientists are not renowned for their interpersonal skills. I don’t believe anyone from there addressed the subject with me, certainly not meaningfully.

I was not anticipating what was to unfold in terms of meditations and chanting. My life certainly diverged from where it had been heading. There were consequences which I had not anticipated in terms of my employability.

If you meditate at least once daily for two decades you are likely to differ markedly in terms of psyche and mind from those who do not. If you don’t see someone for over a decade they may try to shoehorn their perception of you into their old version. They may be unable to conceive of what you are like now. They will not know “the point before mind”.

I have no ambition, no drive, no goals, no targets. I am not overly fussed about what happens to me. I am not interested in kudos. There is no driver for me to invent. I doubt that anything I might write is sellable, certainly not profitable. So, there is no point in me trying to publish for money. In one sense I am waiting until my time is up. The likelihood is that my time will be used gardening, doing DIY, strolling and a bit of blogging here and there. I will be a carer from time to time.

I am out of touch with the modern way of life. I have not made a social ‘phone call in near a decade. I have near zero social email use. Just as I am out of touch with modern life, the outer world is out of touch with me. Only a few people know any of my email addresses and only one person has my ‘phone number. The hospital has it too.

Life is uncomplicated by connectivity.

When you watch the news, it is often a loner who is not popular who turns out to be the perpetrator of some killing or other. People are prejudiced about people like me. They may even pity me and feel sad. That is getting the wrong end of the stick by a country mile. People transfer their obsession with social contact onto me. I am quite happy not to have any. I can go days without speaking to anyone.

I certainly did not add a great deal to UK plc. I once co-founded a company which put dinner on the table for about fifty households. In principle I could have done more. But I did not.

It could be said that I was perhaps fated to do a “Reggie Perrin” only I never came back to work.

I do not know what fate has in store for me, if anything. It is very unlikely to have a wider impact or significance. This could be argued to be a waste. Or simply it is what it is.

Being a four cancer couple already sets us apart statistically. Colon cancer and basal cell carcinomas for me, myeloma and breast for her. She start posts operative radiotherapy next week. I get a “chimney sweep” colonoscopy next year. I am on prostate cancer watch because of slightly elevated PSA. No signs of any lesions in the MRI.

It is pretty clear what the next month is about. The important bit, that is.

I speculate that were I to meet any of the people from my peer groupings it would take quite a while for the penny to drop concerning just how far my life and beingness has diverged from theirs. And they would almost certainly get entirely the wrong end of the stick in any attempt at communication beyond the basic CV style “life fact” exchange. I’ll wager I could understand their lives better than they could understand mine. I came from “there”. I do not think that they could get it nor do I believe that I could convey. They would have to experience over a fair time interval to even begin.

I could be wrong…

I am divergent…

Tag: old fart

How We Are Perceived…

Life Divergences and the Wrong End of the Stick