I've had to really examine what it is I'm doing here. I mean I'm nearly 58 years old, my sons are well over 30, I've got 3 1/2 grand- and step grandchildren (one is in the mixer) and I guess this rather sets me apart from the target demographic of this site.
I must say I enjoy (some of) the portraiture and the dramtic little scenarios that are played out in the photo sets. But it's not about the flesh. I'm beginning to find, in my more objectively lucid moments, that those of my ilk have established a lifestyle that becomes more and more rigid with time. Indeed my primary concerns at this point are retirement (though I'll probably have to work pretty much until I die), the various mortgages I'm saddled with, home maintenance and survival in a highly competitive corporate arena in which job migration becomes more and more difficult with age. I'm really not morose about it, but it does seem that my lifestyle becomes seemingly ossified at the same time as my options become less available.
There are advantages to aging, of course. There's no substitute for life experience in the perception of daily events. And there's a lot of gratification to be had in the witnessing of growth among those whose birth was in part a function of one's own semen.
There came some point in time at which I relaized I was not going to instigate any big new changes in my life. Not sure just exactly when that happened, but like most people in the sub30 age bracket I once believed that all avenues were open to me and all I had to do was decide which to follow and now that sense of freedom and mobility are gone. All avenues are not open to me now, in fact it seems like very few are.
And so I have adopted a tremendous sense of fascination and respect for youth. I am truly not wishing I was 23 years old again. I don't want to relive it. But I do enjoy observing the fuel that drives the world of culture, the arts, innovative business, our evolving language and, indeed, the near future of humanity. It's not that I believe the SG world is wholly indicative of this phenomena, but it does provide a portal and a kind of vicarious participation that allows me to just witness this energy, to observe once again the kind of high velocity life we thought we invented in the sixties, to touch the future.
I must say I enjoy (some of) the portraiture and the dramtic little scenarios that are played out in the photo sets. But it's not about the flesh. I'm beginning to find, in my more objectively lucid moments, that those of my ilk have established a lifestyle that becomes more and more rigid with time. Indeed my primary concerns at this point are retirement (though I'll probably have to work pretty much until I die), the various mortgages I'm saddled with, home maintenance and survival in a highly competitive corporate arena in which job migration becomes more and more difficult with age. I'm really not morose about it, but it does seem that my lifestyle becomes seemingly ossified at the same time as my options become less available.
There are advantages to aging, of course. There's no substitute for life experience in the perception of daily events. And there's a lot of gratification to be had in the witnessing of growth among those whose birth was in part a function of one's own semen.
There came some point in time at which I relaized I was not going to instigate any big new changes in my life. Not sure just exactly when that happened, but like most people in the sub30 age bracket I once believed that all avenues were open to me and all I had to do was decide which to follow and now that sense of freedom and mobility are gone. All avenues are not open to me now, in fact it seems like very few are.
And so I have adopted a tremendous sense of fascination and respect for youth. I am truly not wishing I was 23 years old again. I don't want to relive it. But I do enjoy observing the fuel that drives the world of culture, the arts, innovative business, our evolving language and, indeed, the near future of humanity. It's not that I believe the SG world is wholly indicative of this phenomena, but it does provide a portal and a kind of vicarious participation that allows me to just witness this energy, to observe once again the kind of high velocity life we thought we invented in the sixties, to touch the future.
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-Dana
www.missnight.org