Growing up and being obsessed with music and bands and all that entailed, I continually heard the names Les Paul and Gibson. Rock music wasn't about anything if it wasn't about the guitar - especially the electric guitar.
I'm not a musician so I can't really grasp what Les Paul meant to someone who actually played a Les Paul but I wasn't stupid and knew from the kinds of discussions around music, and particularly from guitar players, that this name was a big deal. A really big deal.
What I'm thinking about, however, is that recently I've been hearing about the passing of number of people - Les Paul, Ed McMahon, George Carlin, Michael Jackson - whose names and presence were part of the landscape of my life. So I'm not talking about the merits of their accomplishments (though, regardless of how you may feel about some of these people, they did have accomplishments and some pretty significant ones). I'm thinking about transitions and generations and the inevitable, relentless and continual renewal of life. (Forgive me if I'm sounding ... oh, I don't know, but I know how it sounds.)
There is a kind of kneejerk, probably instinctual, desire to live as long as possible. Marketing capitalizes on this constantly - "55 is the new 30!" and similar slingshots of horseshit. But here is the thing ...
I've recently been reading biographies of people like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, both of whom lived to their 80s. In both cases, the ends were sad and, frankly, depressing. This is because their worlds vanished before their eyes. It changed. And try as we might, and while some manage it better than others, we're rooted to particular periods, certain generations, and there is no changing that. For both individuals and generations, time is finite. The new comes in and the world becomes their world, as it should.
One of my favourite jokes is from a comedian whose name I can't recall (I wish I could!). It went something like this: "They say smoking takes ten years off your life. Yeah, but they're the crappy ones!"
We may want to live forever but forever means living with memory and loss and that gets depressing very quickly. The universe, in its cryptic way, allots us a certain amount of time on the merry-go-round and those who stay after their turn ... well, they just linger with ghosts.
I think that's what Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" was about. His character, Walt, had lived past his time. His world was gone, a new one had replaced it and that was what he realized at the end of the film and what his final action was about. There is no ascribing of value like, "Mine was better, this new world is crap." It is just how life works.
Mind you, I'm not saying I'm in any rush to leave the hoo-hah of the world. It's endlessly fascinating. But I do hope I don't linger like a shade living in the nooks and crannies of memory and boring the crap out of people with, "I remember when ..."
As Ray Davies said, "We come, we go. We see the show. And it's all moving pictures."
Staying too long in the theatre may not be the best the decision.
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