I seem to be regressing to my youth. I’ve been rereading books I lved when I was younger, and rebuying (is that a word? It is now…) albums I used to listen to.
What’s that all about? This is an unstructured nostalgia trip of significant proportions.
Strangely, most of this stuff seems as great as I remember it!
Books recently reread:
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (all)
Slaughterhouse Five
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Albums rebought(?):
Genesis: Lamb Lies Down, Selling England by the Pound, Trick of the Tail, Nursery Cryme
Aphrodite’s Child: 666
Gong: Camembert Electrique
Oooh! Damn it! I loved those books too. Now look what you’ve started!
The Reader’s Digest psyco-analytical kit says you are are under stress and are seeking security in things that once gave you pleasure at a time when you felt safer. On the other hand, it could just be that those books/records are plainly superior to the garbage that is flooding the market lately.
I like to re-read my old books when I can see enough to read printed matter. Isaac Asimov, R. A. Heinlein, and lots of other early SF writers (I got interested in SF in '48 and predicted to my dad that I would live to see a man on the moon. I watched it on tv with him as it occurred).
I have heard it said that:
The difference between men and the boys
Is only the price they pay for thier toys
I have been wondering what I will be when I really grow up…
However, my musical tastes have expanded rather than reverted. I wasted too many years trying to learn guitar in my younger days and although I still like the rock/blues/jazz I liked in my real youth, my Irish collection still rules.
I have had no desire for a sports car since my teen years. I want something to get me safely from here to there, toting all the stuff I want to takewith me. I will keep my old pickup with the camper cover until it wears completely out.
Regarding “second childhoods,” I was talking to a therapist once about my own childhood and how I never really had one, and he said, very bluntly, “Wrong. You did have a childhood and it did suck and you did get denied many basic human needs and your parents were abusive to you and you won’t get to live your childhood again, ever. You simply have to move on and learn all about the world as an adult, and that will be very difficult.”
It almost made me cry but I think he was right. No matter how much we want to, we can’t go back in time and change or re-live our childhoods.
Buddhu, why on earth would you STOP listening to Gabriel-era Genesis? I never stopped listening to them, nor Gentle Giant, King Crimson, or (earlier) Yes. (Okay, there have been gaps of a year or so now and then.) I find that almost as baffling as why someone would listen to Gong in the first place.
I guess whether guys, or anybody or nobody, grows up depends on how one defines growing up. I’ve always been responsible, paid bills on time, etc. At the same time, I’ve been carded several times in my 40’s. My flute teacher said he thought I was about his age (27) because of my boyish enthusiasm about, well, everything. Just today, my daughter and I caught 6 black swallowtail caterpillars that we’re gonna raise into butterflies. It’s so cool!
Anyway, if one means being responsible, I don’t think guys are really any worse than gals. If you mean, geez, I dunno, acting like an adult, it’s nothing to aspire to or be proud of.
Remember, the average child laughs about 30 times as often as the average adult. Does anybody think that’s good for adults?
Yes, it has been proved that laughter is a great pain reliever. There are “candy stripers” who dress up as clowns in some hospitals, but I haven’t been in one of them. They started at Medical College of Virginia just after I was released, I think.
Music works as a pain reliever as well, I have found.
I took some of my whistles with me on my last hospitalization. Instead of people wanting me to be quiet, they (nurses, doctors, lab workers/technicians, visitors and patients) would drop by the room and actually request that I play them a tune. I almost took a turn for the nurse!
Cranberry, get a bunch of friends together, lie down on the floor in a circle with each person’s head resting on his neighbor’s belly, then start forcing a laugh.
It will turn into a real guffaw session with real laughter.
I would have to partially disagree with you there. Obviously the past can’t be undone, but you can relive your favourite parts, through listening to music or reading favourite books or watching favourite movies, etc.
If anything, I think that is the truly great part of re-experiencing these things again. There was a time when the music was new, or the concepts in the books were new; new ways of thinking, a new point of view explained in a way I could understand. Re-reading or re-listening renews the sense of wonder and enjoyment, as well as providing an opportunity to learn something new in an old favourite. I also have many tapes and DVDs of movies that I watch over and over again just because of they way they made/make me feel when watching them.
Old memories become new again. New memories become old friends. They fill in the blank spaces.
Ok - I’ve been a responsible adult, holding down a responsible, long term job, raised one kid and working on the second one, etc.
But - I loved “playing” with the kids when they were little (I was the Lego building champ of the neighborhood). I still find wonder in the little things of life, and can be perfectly happy just being with good friends.
As Peter Pan said:
“If growing up means it would be
beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up -
Not me!”
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