A fascinating read on our generational consciousness - thank you. So much to ponder here. I loved your aside about others born at exactly the same moment as you who still have different experiences of the same lifespan. My spouse and I were born on the same day, nine hours apart, and you helped me give language to my occasional bafflement at wondering how he didn't experience the same event that shaped my consciousness. Or even when we lived through the same generational crisis, we can still have vastly different experiences. I was studying abroad in Paris on 9/11, for example, and he was in college in Indiana. So our conversations about that day and the era it shaped are completely different. Each of us have our own tectonic plates, so no wonder our shifts are never precisely the same.
My maternal grandmother lived to 94 and was walking at the mall every day for an hour until the day she died. I have always said that I want to be like Grandma Rose and live as much living as I can in the years I have left in this world. Ms. Tanaka is another example of living fully and grabbing wonder and bliss wherever you can in the midst of so much ugliness. What a great role model for us all! Thank you for holding her up in this light.
An absolutely eloquent closing sentence to this inspirational story! Yes, let’s see and create joy among us even in the most troubled times. Thanks for this wonderful message to start my day (at age 84). I count on Courtney to do it! Love, DD
Courtney - such a gorgeous post. It makes me think you would like Oliver Burkeman's book "4,000 weeks: Time Management for Mortals" if you haven't already read it. While it sounds like wonky productivity peddling, it's a gorgeous mash-up of theology, philosophy, poetry, etc. Toward the end of the book, Burkeman reflects on the late British philosopher Bryan Magee's compelling model of the brevity life via his thinking about lifespan.
"…In every generation today, even back when life expectancy was much shorter that it is today, there were always at least a few hundred people who lived to the age of one hundred (5,200 weeks). And when each of those people was born, there must have been a few other people alive at the time who had already reached the age of one hundred themselves. So it's possible to visualize a chain of centenarian lifespans, stretching all the way back through history, with no spaces in between them: specific people who really lived, and each of whom we could name, if only the historical record were good enough.
Now for the arresting part: by this measure, the golden age of the Egyptian pharaohs - an era that strikes most of us as impossibly remote from our own - took place a scant 35 lifetimes ago. Jesus was born about 20 lifetimes ago, and the Renaissance happened 7 back. A paltry five centenarian lifetimes ago, Henry VIII sat on the English throne. Five!….the number of lives you would need to span the whole of recorded civilization, *sixty* was the 'number of friends I squeeze into my living from when I have a drinks party.'"
Aside from the fact that Magee clearly had a lot of friends and social distancing wasn't a concern for his generation, the idea is spectacularly vivid and shocking, no?! It's stayed with me for some time now when I think about my lifespan, my children's and our place in human history….
Much love to you for your gorgeous writing. Thank you for always being bold and vulnerable.
"Is it any wonder that some of us prize care and others freedom?" A rich and thoughtful post, and I was struck by this question, which is something so many of us have been thinking about through the past two+ difficult years. And I wonder if the quandary here is that care and freedom, for many passionate people, have become stand-ins for bigger ideas, and have ceased to mean anything one can hold in their hand. I would say that, in general, care and freedom are ideals central to most people's lives, though those ideals might be expressed and lived in different ways. Are there parallels between the way that "freedom" has been hijacked and the way that other people approach the idea of "care"? I think there are. And are their ways for people to consider this without ending up as a guest on some gross right-wing podcast? Sadly, not enough, it seems.
"Life is such a wild layering on and on and on." And I love that.
Thanks, as always. I have had one dear friend die, and know the pain therein. A lifetime of losses seems almost unbearable.
(just what you need....ha!) Another book recommendation: I am savouring Annie Dillard's "For the Time Being." It's strange and wonderful - time, and our place in it, are some of the ideas she explores.
A fascinating read on our generational consciousness - thank you. So much to ponder here. I loved your aside about others born at exactly the same moment as you who still have different experiences of the same lifespan. My spouse and I were born on the same day, nine hours apart, and you helped me give language to my occasional bafflement at wondering how he didn't experience the same event that shaped my consciousness. Or even when we lived through the same generational crisis, we can still have vastly different experiences. I was studying abroad in Paris on 9/11, for example, and he was in college in Indiana. So our conversations about that day and the era it shaped are completely different. Each of us have our own tectonic plates, so no wonder our shifts are never precisely the same.
My maternal grandmother lived to 94 and was walking at the mall every day for an hour until the day she died. I have always said that I want to be like Grandma Rose and live as much living as I can in the years I have left in this world. Ms. Tanaka is another example of living fully and grabbing wonder and bliss wherever you can in the midst of so much ugliness. What a great role model for us all! Thank you for holding her up in this light.
An absolutely eloquent closing sentence to this inspirational story! Yes, let’s see and create joy among us even in the most troubled times. Thanks for this wonderful message to start my day (at age 84). I count on Courtney to do it! Love, DD
Courtney - such a gorgeous post. It makes me think you would like Oliver Burkeman's book "4,000 weeks: Time Management for Mortals" if you haven't already read it. While it sounds like wonky productivity peddling, it's a gorgeous mash-up of theology, philosophy, poetry, etc. Toward the end of the book, Burkeman reflects on the late British philosopher Bryan Magee's compelling model of the brevity life via his thinking about lifespan.
"…In every generation today, even back when life expectancy was much shorter that it is today, there were always at least a few hundred people who lived to the age of one hundred (5,200 weeks). And when each of those people was born, there must have been a few other people alive at the time who had already reached the age of one hundred themselves. So it's possible to visualize a chain of centenarian lifespans, stretching all the way back through history, with no spaces in between them: specific people who really lived, and each of whom we could name, if only the historical record were good enough.
Now for the arresting part: by this measure, the golden age of the Egyptian pharaohs - an era that strikes most of us as impossibly remote from our own - took place a scant 35 lifetimes ago. Jesus was born about 20 lifetimes ago, and the Renaissance happened 7 back. A paltry five centenarian lifetimes ago, Henry VIII sat on the English throne. Five!….the number of lives you would need to span the whole of recorded civilization, *sixty* was the 'number of friends I squeeze into my living from when I have a drinks party.'"
Aside from the fact that Magee clearly had a lot of friends and social distancing wasn't a concern for his generation, the idea is spectacularly vivid and shocking, no?! It's stayed with me for some time now when I think about my lifespan, my children's and our place in human history….
Much love to you for your gorgeous writing. Thank you for always being bold and vulnerable.
With love - Amy
"May we not live quite so long, but certainly live so joyfully."
Working hard on this as I am not likely to live so long. And that knowledge is truly helping me live joyfully.
Thank you for this post.
"Is it any wonder that some of us prize care and others freedom?" A rich and thoughtful post, and I was struck by this question, which is something so many of us have been thinking about through the past two+ difficult years. And I wonder if the quandary here is that care and freedom, for many passionate people, have become stand-ins for bigger ideas, and have ceased to mean anything one can hold in their hand. I would say that, in general, care and freedom are ideals central to most people's lives, though those ideals might be expressed and lived in different ways. Are there parallels between the way that "freedom" has been hijacked and the way that other people approach the idea of "care"? I think there are. And are their ways for people to consider this without ending up as a guest on some gross right-wing podcast? Sadly, not enough, it seems.
"Life is such a wild layering on and on and on." And I love that.
Thanks, as always. I have had one dear friend die, and know the pain therein. A lifetime of losses seems almost unbearable.
(just what you need....ha!) Another book recommendation: I am savouring Annie Dillard's "For the Time Being." It's strange and wonderful - time, and our place in it, are some of the ideas she explores.
Sweet!