Rage, Rage... and The Enchanted Island

Rage, Rage, Against the Dying Light

Last Sunday, when I should have been writing this column, I was driving to Delhi from the Kumaon. I scrolled through my messages (on a cheap Android), while crawling through a toll plaza. 

I halted at these lines, “People should not look at their approaching golden years with apprehension…”

This was like mind-reading. For the last several hours, I had been doing exactly that, so I hit the mic button on WhatsApp, and sent off this voice note:

“My heart is full right now, Chippy, because I just visited a dear friend, who had a stent inserted a couple of months ago, after severe angina. The coronary follow-up is all clear, but the angina continues, and he is now in a state of anxiety.”

Back in my Delhi bedroom, I read the Guardian* article from which Chippy had extracted some lines. The piece, written in 2017, by the 94 year old Harry Leslie Smith,  is extremely beautiful: 

“I only regret that death will end my dance to the music of time, no matter how slow the waltz has become to allow me to keep up.” 

I never learned to waltz, but I’m an aging rocker, and at a blues afternoon three weeks ago, it was charming to see so many of us, stiff backs, game knees and all, still intent on letting our bodies show their appreciation for the music that moves us. And, no, we won’t ask the band to slow down - we can move to every other beat, or every fourth one, or to our own fractured sense of time. As long as we are moved, and show it.

TR, aka Thambi - an inspiring rocker for all generations

There was some politics in there, too - it was in The Guardian after all:

“I know that my physical wellbeing and dignity may yet be affected adversely by the government’s self-created social care crisis but I will not spend either my last years or days living in fear of the Tories. I cannot because I have seen their kind before in the 1930s and 1980s and know that the only way we can beat the tyranny of austerity is through our own personal defiance.”

Personal defiance - I love that, straight out of Dylan Thomas - Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light.

I don’t think I will rage, but I will be defiant, push back. Because, in pushing back against the odds, the odds change. In your favour. Riding your cycle in the hills gets tougher each year, and requires more strength-training in the off-season, but it can be done. That’s the pushing back you have to do. But, beyond the physical,

“People should not look at their approaching golden years with dread or apprehension but as perhaps one of the most significant stages in their development as a human being, even during these turbulent times. For me, old age has been a renaissance despite the tragedies of losing my beloved wife and son. It’s why the greatest error anyone can make is to assume that, because an elderly person is in a wheelchair or speaks with quiet deliberation, they have nothing important to contribute to society. It is equally important to not say to yourself if you are in the bloom of youth: ‘I’d rather be dead than live like that.’ As long as there is sentience and an ability to be loved and show love, there is purpose to existence.”

Ah, love! Show love, till the end of your days.

**https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/24/dont-dread-old-age-fear-tories-tyranny-austerity

APPLE vs. The State

The Enchanted Garden - with Nightcafe AI

The US government has launched a legal assault on Apple, on the grounds that it has created a moat to cross which it charges developers and app builders large sums of money. If you had a successful product, you would do that, wouldn’t you? It’s not as if the customers assembled on your island have been transported there in cattle wagons. In a market full of choice, it’s the Apple pleasure garden in which they chose to scroll.

Riffing off RSJ’s comments in Anticipating the Unintended** this morning, those who queue up all night to buy the first specimens of a new iPhone model aren’t exactly slave labour waiting for the daily handout of rations. Apple have created an expensive fruit that tempts many at prices I can’t fathom. Each to his own. For the state to get involved is - in my view - gross interference in consumer affairs.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that a gift of an iPhone 15 Pro had injected an unnecessary cognitive load for me. Well, I solved that last weekend, when CanKids reached out for help to meet unpaid medicine bills at year-end. I wired them some funds, but also sent them the phone, still unopened. May someone pay pots of money for it!

**

#250 When You Ignore the Unintended...