Another chapter from a book mariner wrote 25 years ago about what’s important and forgot he wrote it! Must not have been important . This chapter continues the theme of what is important in different stages of life.

Mid-life
Perhaps the hardest age game is the mid-life game. The mid-life game is important to folks from about forty-two to fifty-eight and being a true existentialist really helps. This is a strange and challenging game. As usual, what’s important is anything that’s not really important. What’s important is the hair that’s not there, the career that won’t happen, the young girl who isn’t interested, and the prince who won’t come. What’s important in this game is what the shopping malls, automobiles and other augmentations can do to hide the rapidly climbing years. You can’t look backward to vitality and forward to wisdom at the same time. But you remember the thirties games. To hell with wisdom. Naturally, it’s the wisdom that’s actually important about mid-life: you’re old enough to be wise and young enough to have the energy to put it to use.
The mid-life game has gambits (a word from chess that means going out on a limb), a technique which other ages don’t use very much. Some examples are: extramarital affair, divorce, changing career, obsessing about something that is not important, like immaculate lawns or golf, and even some scary gambits like alcohol and abandonment. Each gambit is a deliberate way of looking for what’s important. These gambits are dangerous because what seemed important before isn’t important any more and what’s important now may not be important later. That’s why it’s called a gambit. It is possible to come out ahead but it’s a chancy way to find out what’s important. Someone almost always gets hurt during these gambits — including you.
So much for looking back to the virile thirties. If you make it through the mid-life game intact, it’s on to wisdom.

Next: Sixties and seventies

Ancient Mariner

Mariner and his wife were enjoying a wonderful, sunny day with comfortable temperatures. “Why don’t we go on an outing”, his wife said. “You don’t have anything to do, do you?” Mariner said, “No.” (Of course they were lying; each had gallon job jars stuffed to overflowing). An ‘outing’ is an occasional adventure they take just to get out. Typically, they would look for small, out-of-the-way spots not on the normal tourist path. One time they decided to visit Oquawka, a river town in Illinois. When they arrived, the town had not made it through the COVID pandemic. Every store and business was closed except a riverfront restaurant.

Recently, they decided to visit a nearby historical spot: Athens, Missouri. The reader may remember that Missouri was okay with slaves but some of the population wanted to secede while the rest wanted to stay in the Union.  During the Civil war, Athens was a small town that suffered a battle between town citizens because some wanted to secede, others did not.

What makes Athens relevant is that the town is directly across the Des Moines river from Croton, Iowa. Iowa’s participation in the combat action of the Civil War amounted to a cannon ball that inadvertently made it across the river from Athens.

The Athens State Park is a pleasant visit. The grounds and few remaining buildings are well cared for. But the accounting of the skirmish between town residents made mariner think.

Whether Trump wins or not, could there be a release of ‘feelings’ that would entice riots, attacks on organizations supporting strong opinions, and even street fighting with guns?

Times certainly are a-changing.

Ancient Mariner

Another in the series taken from a book mariner wrote about 25 years ago. The book addresses the fact that what we think is important is not important. In the section about aging, this extract covers the thirties:

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The Thirties

What’s important about turning thirty is that it’s not important. Turning thirty is like getting a warning ticket from the traffic cop. No real fine, just a warning that a real ticket could happen soon. In fact, at thirty there are many professional and recreational games that present themselves and this is probably what seems most important. Otherwise, being thirty is like going through a second puberty — other than your vitality, you’re not worth a lot to anyone. You’re too old to be young and too young to be experienced.
The most fun is the singles game. The years around thirty are a hodgepodge of coed softball, amateur politics at the office, music, obligatory hours at work, weekends at a beachfront motel with someone, even someone who’s an acquaintance, and sports of all kinds. What’s important is singles bars, sports bars, sports cars and volleyball. The thirties game is important only for a few years but it burns plenty of energy. What’s important when you’re thirty is flaunting your maturity at the late teens and early twenties. You got your warning ticket, though, so you do not want to be older anymore. The thirties game is over when the potbelly emerges and the thighs thicken.
Some thirty year-olds play another game called marriage and kids. Oddly enough, this game passes the twenties and early thirties as rapidly as the singles game. What’s important is a partner who is predictable and dependable and both of you procreating more people to play the age game. While the singles game never lets you forget you’re growing older, the married with kids game lets you forget for a few years. Kids and secondary school make time stand still. The game is over when the potbelly emerges and the thighs thicken — or the kids bail out.

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Stay tuned for middle age.

Ancient Mariner

Regular readers will recall that mariner and his wife restored their attic, causing massive upheavals of where to store what, what to discard and other disruptive activities for relocating years of unremembered junk.

Add to this the fact that bedrooms and other facilities must be prepared for approaching family and friends visiting from all over the continent. In the midst of this, mariner decided to listen to his GOAT collection. GOAT stands for Greatest Of All Time. He had set aside 100 pieces of music that had become his favorites over the decades; most were rock and roll, some classic moments and a potpourri of generic recordings primarily from the 1950’s, 60s and 70s, one album was from the 40s!

He listened without interruption as each song or instrumental played. After a significant number of songs had played, he began to realize that each song was a key to a buried vault that still contained a genuine moment in life – the event and its emotion was retained in a pure state without the abrasions of time and memory loss.

Does the reader remember their first crush and that special song? Many GOAT songs provoked melancholy about good times – and the good times reoccurred without distortion. Many songs were just a joyful appreciation of good arrangements and favored artists; mariner enjoys any song sung by Fats Domino. Some had moments of genuine admiration for the talent; Michael Crawford in the Phantom of the Opera. Some were moments of celebration; Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary with Mary singing over the top in the climax of ‘Day is Done’. Some songs provided unique insight; mariner had a strange comprehension of eternity when he listened to ‘Ghost Riders in the Skies’ by Frankie Lane. There was one song that opened the vault containing feelings about his mother.

Once your brain realizes that it is wandering in ancient vaults, whole sections of life escape into the conscious mind: great beach parties, winning jitterbug contests, marrying your spouse, playing touch football at an ice skating rink (and being tossed out), and the good old days of football.

So mariner recommends that everyone take a quiet moment somewhere and relive their life – as it really was – by listening to your GOAT.

Ancient Mariner

A few posts ago it was mentioned that mariner had discovered a book he had written several decades ago that had long been forgotten. He mentioned that he would post a section of the book every once in a while. The title of the book is “What’s it all about? It’s all about what’s important”, the premise being that what we think is important, it’s actually something else. The section below is taken from a chapter about what is important in various ages of our lives.

2. What’s important at your age

It was Longfellow who wrote in A Psalm of Life:
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers
And things are not what they seem.
Life is Real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Dreary stuff but very existential. What’s important about existentialism is that life is an exciting game. What’s important about dreary is that it’s dreary. A game metaphor addresses this age business rather well. Games are what’s important about going through life — dreary as it may be.

A game is a game because it masks reality; important things are translated into artificial but very manageable behavior — like going to the movies to be scared rather than going somewhere where you’ll really be scared.

What’s important in aging is the game you play in each phase. The easiest game to recognize is the youngster milking out every drop of maturity by adding the fraction: “I’m ten and three-quarters”. A little later, it’s the teen saying, “Well, seventeen is
just like eighteen”. These early age games are good examples for showing a theme that appears in all the age games: What’s really important is what’s not important. What’s really important about young people is that they are young — but for them, that’s not important; what’s important is that they want to be older.

Twenties

It’s not all about numbers, either. Walk through a college campus sometime — especially if you haven’t been on one in a while. I don’t care what sex you are; the scene will bring you to your knees. These young, virile and fecund bodies unconsciously flaunt their age with energy, intelligence, and sensuality and are wholeheartedly absorbed into their world. You can see their game. And you can see that you’re not playing. Remember you’re an existentialist and move on.

What’s important when you’re in your early twenties is what you’re going to do when you’re older. You have some earth-moving fantasies about this but you truly haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. What’s really important about the early twenties is how well you can bring the older folks to their knees.

Certain ages have more important games than others. It doesn’t really matter that you’re twenty-four years old. But twenty-one — there’s an age with a million variations. Somehow, drinking alcohol becomes an all right thing; so is being sued and going into debt. And no one’s proven to me that a twenty year-old is any dumber than the rest of the voters who elect our country’s representatives. You are allowed to join the armed services at eighteen and maybe get yourself killed. I suspect there is some ulterior reasoning behind that particular opportunity at that particular age. Eighteen year-olds are prone to think it is important to defend mother and home — or perhaps to get away from mother and home.

Stay tuned to catch what’s important about the thirties.

Ancient Mariner

In the last post the reader was introduced to a book mariner wrote about twenty years ago. The book was about what’s important – and that what seems important may not really be important. Below is the first chapter which defines generally the places where we can find what’s really important. It’s a long chapter so it is offered in post-length sections.

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1.1 What’s it all about?
It’s all about what’s important. The question is, where do you find out what’s important? Sweatshirts, for one: “Let the dog in, let the dog out…let the dog in, let the dog out…” Life’s a bitch, then you die”; “He’s with me, I’m with her”; “Green Bay Packers”; “Back Street Boys”. I guess these things are important because people feel inclined to express them on their clothes like blatant but removable tattoos.
It isn’t about what’s not important. Rudi Valle, Eddie Fisher, the Temptations, Elvis and the Beatles, N’Sync — important icons come and go, to say nothing of Rutherford B Hayes, Kaiser Wilhelm, General Lee and Albert Schweitzer. All of them were once very important but the wave of importance keeps moving. I guess it’s because the sweatshirts wear out. The challenge for you is to find out continually what’s important by searching in places that are rich in contemporary, important stuff.
A person’s age is a place to find out what’s important. I’ve noticed that very young children and very old adults have a similar independence and care more about experiencing the moment at hand than the rest of us do. A young child, in an innocent, impulsive fashion, will enjoy the current experience with total disregard for future ramifications. Older folks, not so much with innocence but with wizened independence and disregard for decorum, will engage the present moment with deliberateness others seem not to have the patience to endure. It occurred to me that the very young and the very old find it easier to live in the present moment than the rest of us because the one has no past to fall back on and the other has no future for which to be held accountable. ‘Now’ is important to these folks.
For the rest of us, now is not important. Our past haunts us and our future threatens us. What’s important is not who we are now but who we were (I was in the war) or who we will be (I’m going to retire at 50); even who someone else is (my son is a doctor; my team won the Super Bowl).

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As mariner rereads this book, the voice reminds him of splinters rather than blocks of wood. He apologizes for this but the style allows for quick, influencing insights that, on the one hand, are insightful but on the other hand, don’t deserve full paragraphs. From time to time, he will drop in excerpts from this unusual piece of work.

Ancient Mariner