"... and I can’t see the point because all you’re doing is creating memories you’ll never be able to savour. There’s a similar problem with reading. You’re filling your head with new things that will never be of any use. Because while you’ll have the facts to hand, you won’t have the mental agility to use them to form worthwhile opinions. And even if you do, who’ll listen?... I started going for walks in the pandemic, mainly because if I was far from the house I was far from the fridge. This is something I hated as a young man. I couldn’t see the point of 'going for a walk' if I was simply going to end up back where I started. But I love it now because I can see the hedgerows changing with the seasons.... [W]hen you are old, you no longer need to make the best use of your time. You need to waste it. You need to fill the hours and that’s why gardening now holds some appeal. I bought some secateurs the other day and find them mildly arousing.... All the stuff I used to think was boring is now a 'lovely' way of passing the time. I haven’t fallen into the jigsaw wormhole yet and I haven’t taken up bridge or golf. Nor have I felt compelled yet to spend any time sitting in the Volvo in a 'viewing area' at a beauty spot drinking tea from a Thermos. But I will."
This made me want to link once again to "10 reasons to live like a grandma" (TikTok). And "Let's talk about grandmacore."
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38 comments:
There is an intrinsic joy in understanding things. Alan needs to understand that.
I don't read books to savor the memories, but because I like the experience. Memories are good, but present reality comes before.
And that everything ends with death is an atheist's assumption I don't share.
Nutty Brit. He might as well kill himself. What’s the point to continue to live? He should STFU.
This guy is only 62! What a fucking loser! What the hell is wrong with him?
And how does he explain Trump?
Sounds to me like the guy's already dead....sorta.
I'm older than he, and my problem is trying to prioritize what new things I want to learn and experience before I poop out.
"I don't read books to savor the memories, but because I like the experience."
I think he means to imply, also, that when you have a great deal of time left, you have more reason to fill your head with material you can use, such as in your career or in impressing people who will reward you in some way. So you lose the value of reading as a means to an end. He doesn't say it — he's trying to be funny — but that gives immense value to reading. Now, you're going to read as an end in itself. So, now, what books will you read.
For my job, I had to read a lot, and I needed to believe what I was reading was worth reading, but now that I'm retired, I don't find myself reading books about law. I keep up with the news, and that reading is intrinsically valuable to me because I love to WRITE (here on this blog), but when it comes to the books I read when I'm away from the computer, they aren't about law and politics! I want to read books by excellent writers who give me beautiful sentences — real-time goodness.
seems like this theory implies spending your time helping the next generation, which has a long tradition
Traveling, I get. Moving someplace for months is useful, but at 60, I just find the prospect of moving annoying. But reading? You don't have to read something long or complex, especially these days. You can "supplement the author's thoughts" easily and thus build an even more larger mound of things to weigh and consider. Or the purpose of fiction is to take you into a world. If your novel doesn't do that, then toss it out. Same for movies.
It's crossed my mind that I am learning things about HVAC, thermodynamics [conceptually instead of running to hide in the math], electricity, electronics, that I likely will never use. And in my contemplations, if I come to some deeper understanding that might be of use to the world, it is likely to die with me unwritten. Certainly unremarked as my interests are of little interest to others in conversation. But the pleasure is in the contemplation, the consideration, the mixing of concepts, the varied approaches to see things in a new light.
Read not to contradict and confute;
nor to believe and take for granted;
nor to find talk and discourse;
but to weigh and consider. - Bacon
Holy crap. I’m closing in on 62 and worried about how to improve my kick serve.
I traveled as soon as I could afford it and took my kids as soon as they were old enough. Since then, my kids have been all over the world. My middle daughter even flew over the Andes in a small plane to the head waters of the Amazon. She had been working on an archeology site in Ecuador. She lived a year in Spain and spent a month in Morocco to work on her Arabic.
I'm 63. We have an RV and I enjoy going out in it. We had the world's best Green Chile Cheese Burger at Sparky's in Hatch, NM last week. For all that, I enjoy getting home more. I'd like to have one more visit to Europe - fabulous food and I enjoy the history. We live on an acre in the high desert of New Mexico at the base of a 10,500' mountain. I enjoy gardening and I planted some native trees a few years ago and this past winter the rabbits took out six of them. It was a mild winter and there was water and other food available. So why did this happen? Rabbits are ass holes. I went to war on the packrats - I destroyed four of their primary nests and two of their secondary nests, killed a dozen of them and many mice to boot. They probably call me Putin. I'm selling a few things and sending more and more stuff to Goodwill. I used to ask the kids if they wanted it first, but after the continued rolled eyes and heavy sighs, I have stopped. Which really pissed off my son when I got rid of the Shuttle Columbia model that he apparently coveted. He made it clear he wants the BMW so I will do my best to drive it into the ground. I was going to get rid of my 300 LP records but ended up getting a cheap turntable hooked up to an old Klipsch iPod station and listen to a few albums a week. Good thing I kept all those RCA cables! Who's laughing now?
Won’t have the mental agility to form opinions and you won’t have anyone to share them with? What a sad, pathetic life this person has. I am lucky enough to have good friends who want to hear something new I have read and we will share our opinions about so many things. We pick dinner companions based on new information we have read.
Clarkson’s Farm, on Amazon Prime, is an outstanding show.
For those not familiar with him, he made a car show, Top Gear, one of the most watched TV shows ever.
Althouse
Try this one. RIVERMAN AN AMERICAN ODYssey
I do now take long walks listening to podcasts, and have some twinges that I know things I will likely never share, even with granddaughters nearby. Yet for some of us, taking information in, trying to create some value-added around it, and sending it back out is automatic. You can call it a virtue or a disease, it doesn't matter. It's just who I am. St. Paul said the same about preaching the gospel. He felt he did not deserve credit, it was just what he had to do. Some need to cook, some need to inquire after babies' ages at the grocery, some need to exercise until it feels good, some need to reminisce about old boyfriends. To exercise judgement about what other old people do is just silly. You can't take credit or blame for your preferences now. They have become who you are and you can't stop. Nor should you. It may be that you never had much choice decades ago either, but are only enacting what your genes demand.
Had reason to be on a university campus this morning so checked out the bookstore. Killed enjoyable time browsing, but ended up not buying. Do I need to collect this? Even put down one I know I can pass on to a relative. But did order one new book online from my public library, a favorite historian, so hopefully will focus on that.
Perhaps one experience this guy would benefit from (and would have years ago) is a trip to the doctor for some anti-depressants.
I'd like to spend my autumn years driving Dr Pol.
Sounds like a pity party.
Clarkson has more money than God.
He can do whatever he wants.
Don't cry for him...
I quit reading chemistry and medicinal chemistry/biology papers/books when I retired, but not immediately, even though I knew I wasn't going to work in the field again. I kept my online access paid for and active for about 3 years, and continued to read, first at the pace I did previously, but then it petered out over a steady rate over those three years to nothing, and I then dropped the services. I like chemistry a lot, but I don't see a purpose any longer in reading about it- my professional interest in it no longer exists.
Hey Skipper is right.
Clarkson did something fairly gutsy. He transitioned from a car guy to a farmer, then filmed it with a local kid calling out all of the dumb mistakes he made.he seems to have put a lot of hard physical labor into it. Not a sad pathetic life at all.
Quote is just another reminder that it is difficult to judge others if you only see one aspect of their life.
He also punched some producer at the BBC which is another reason, in addition to the farm that I admire him. But even three or four datapoints at this distance may not be enough to really judge.
And it may be, at this point in my life, that I hold so much hatred for the Democrats that I have no more room to feel unkindly of anyone else.
Never quit. Never retire. The body understands purpose. The day you abandon the future is the day you die. If you are single, marry and have children, if not of your body, then adopt. Be blind to death and work your way into the grave. If you take this advice, I promise, the Reaper will find you low priority. Death is lazy, and the lazy are already dead.
"Thomas Jefferson still survives."
My wife and I are too old to travel now. Last European trip was 2015. It was the 200th anniversary of Waterloo.
We got to California every few months to see kids and grandkids but all by car now.
TL, DR (and it wanted to cookie me--I never pay and never take cookies) but 1) 62 isn't old and 2) from others' comments the guy is a wanker.
I have very specific travel desires, that will be delayed now and possibly never be fulfilled at all. OTOH my reading, listening, and hobby are very little different than they were 20 or 40 years ago, and I see no reason to change.
I don't miss the professional reading I had to do, which in truth was not very extensive because it wasn't very relevant. And I wouldn't be in a profession that wasn't at least adjacent to my lifelong fascination with the past, so even that was OK for the most part.
As for waste of effort, why is traveling or reading yet another history book a bigger waste than watching another ball game?
I'm the oldest male in my line by far, since Opa died in 1959 aged 75. Father 1962 (39), older brother 2004 (55), next brother 2010 (54). I'm going to do some of the living they can't.
"Some imagine that they should spend their final years doing as much world travel as possible . . . and I can’t see the point because all you’re doing is creating memories you’ll never be able to savour . . . [W]hen you are old, you no longer need to make the best use of your time. You need to waste it."
For which travel is just as good as going for a walk. One kind of waste is as good as another. It just depends. It's up to you. From a certain angle, it's all a waste. When he gets really old, he'll get over the illusion that walking or gardening are a better kind of waste.
Maybe the guy should just spend his time playing Wordle.
"... and I can’t see the point because all you’re doing is creating memories you’ll never be able to savour. There’s a similar problem with reading. You’re filling your head with new things that will never be of any use.
You're right, you're missing the point. It's your loss.
I think that he's wrong about new experiences and memories. If life were just about memories, if you saw a really great movie, you'd never really need to go back and watch it again because you have the memory of it. Most people do things for the experience of it, not for the memory it will create. (And watching a movie again that you like is actually a new experience.) When you get older, spending too much time with your memories can be a mistake because it prevents you from going out and getting new experiences.
Even being old can get old. Changes for the worse. Limitations. But, like talking about covid, you get bored with being fearful and bored with bored. You realize: I got a chance to be here; I saw the sun, I saw winter and spring. Unique, I came into being and now I see my kind of being passes away. I have Christian faith, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom, has always been my prayer. But still I see passing away is part of what I always was. But not yet. I still see day beginning, winter passing, snowdrops opening.
I plan to live my retirement years attending college classes and arguing with the professors and other students.
Clarkson had suggests been self-deprecating. I'm choosing to take his comments in that sense.
"Jeremy Clarkson on growing old and his fear of death/On the brink of turning 62 — and outliving his father and several of his closest friends — Clarkson takes a long, hard look in the mirror"
Jeremy. Get to 70 and then we'll talk.
Travel is of the moment. After-travel is memories. The most enduring after-travel is pictures.
A pocketable camera (sometimes called a phone) makes travel not just memorable but infinitely and accurately sharable.
He lives not too far from me, now.
But then again, I moved to England, so that's not too hard. I still haven't adjusted to how close together everything is here after living in MN for 20 years.
It seems to me that much of life is simply preparation for what comes next. Even as a child (or perhaps, especially) we learn "new" things in order to prepare us for what is to come. We learn to eat solid food, train our bowels and bladder, walk, run, then go to school to learn more things to prepare us to deal with the next thing coming down the proverbial pike. At a certain age, I should think the preparation process would dwell on what comes after this life. At least in my case, it's so. Of course, that presupposes that one believes there is a "next" thing after death, and in Mr. Clarkson's case, perhaps he does not believe anything awaits him after this life ends. I suppose that is now true for more people than in the past, which is a pity. A lot of folks nowadays have taken Pascal's wager and decided the odds favor a nugatory outcome. I'm not one of them. I haven't given up doing pleasurable things (at least insofar as I am able and not morally constrained) but I can't disregard the possibility that Jesus wasn't joking when he had that little tete-a-tete with the thief next to Him on Golgotha. Anyway, today I celebrate His Triumphal Entry and will next commemorate His death, burial and resurrection, so all the best to you. I hope you have a significant Easter.
I saw something in print a while back.
One guy meets up with a newly retired friend for morning coffee. Asks how he is finding retirement. The Friend respond, pretty good. He had already marked three things off his list for the day, and it's only 9:30. The man replies. You have a lot to learn. Pace your self. 3 errands done right, should last you all day.
Farmers are experts in pacing themselves in the off season. A husband and wife came into the office early one morning because I needed both signatures. As they were leaving the wife asked what he was doing the rest of the day. He said nothing much. Wife asked if he didn't do that the day before???, Yep, but I never finished.
I wonder if part of Clarkson's point of view comes from just being weary. Having watched a great volume of the Top Gear episodes over the years, there were many times when stunts went awry or complications ensued that resulted in not small injuries. Those pile up over time and with age become intolerable. I think of the episode where he was required to crash his reinforced semi-truck into a brick wall at speed. He came out of that one with a slight concussion, whiplash, broken ribs, and broken thumbs. In the Vietnam road trip special he crashed the wonky Vespa, getting nicely bruised and bloodied.
The other part is that he's a natural curmudgeon and enjoys it. Still, he's blessed with his children and that's more than many can say.
This is another post where you should read the article before commenting. Once I did my attitude changed.
It is witty and articulate as he comments on aging and the changes it brings. I will speculate that he is affected by outliving his father even at the young age of 62. He might also be burdened by no longer being able to do the work he was very good at and seemed to love. 62 is to soon for productive and fulfilling life to end but it is long enough to have a rich and complete one.
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