I Must be Getting Old

[porphyry]

Last week, my father and I were discussing the recent rash of students going into classrooms and opening fire on their classmates and teachers. This is a phenomenon that comes and goes in waves in the United States.

Whenever this happens—and it is tragic, no doubt—all the news reports that one sees tend to deliver common themes about why a person would do such a thing. The person was depressed. The person was bullied. The person was picked on. The person was abused. The person was taking antidepressants. This person had been in therapy. This person wasn’t the person everybody knew. This person shouldn’t have had access to guns. This person had been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.

Now, my father isn’t prone to ranting and is not an overly emotional person by nature (“It’s because I come from the Scots” is his explanation why), but as we were discussing this topic of school shootings—something one would not have seen prior to the early 1990’s—he grew irritated.

“Apologist horseshit!” he exclaimed. “Everybody wants to know what’s wrong with these kids. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with them. They are no more depressed than we were; no more teased or bullied or picked on or anything else. What they were was overindulged and overmedicated—never taught to just cope with life and its disappointments. They all think just because they exist they’re special. ‘Oh, I’m depressed,’ they’d say, so off they’d go and get these brain chemical altering drugs that probably did them more harm than good. ‘Oh, I need a therapist’,” he mocked, “’Nobody ever affirmed me.’”

At this point, I laughed. “Settle down, Dad,” I said.

“Well, it’s true,” he said, warming up to his subject. “They all think they’re special even if they haven’t done a damn thing in their lives except be born, that the world exists to serve them, and then when it doesn’t, they do this kind of crap and then don’t even have the guts to take the consequences for their actions.”

I must be getting old. I’m rather inclined to agree with him.

Comments

[bricology.livejournal.com]

"I must be getting old. I’m rather inclined to agree with him."

...as am I.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

I was always old. (And I strongly agree with some parts of your dad's ranting.)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

When I was younger--as a child, even--my father was fond of saying I, too, was born old. Later he explained to me what he meant by that, exactly; what do you mean when you say it about yourself?

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm not sure if that was right, but was comes to my mind now is maybe sitting in a grandfather's chair with a book. A certain kind of slowness. Forbearance and sentimentality. Inability to think about the future. Polonius' tedious talkativeness. Dislike for dancing, games, sports and most activities, especially outdoor ones. Lack of spontaneity. (But not lack of enthusiasm.)

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

Add my retrospective attitudes.

And if bad hearing and seeing are signs of being old: I feel I sometimes have a "myopically" distorted way of seeing things, often trouble to distinguish signal from noise, joke from earnest, and to see things in their proper proportions. (But that might rather be my autistic than my senile side.)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Malkhos has trouble interpreting things like this, too.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. More to your habits than your character, if that makes sense.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

In what way are you "born old"? (If you pardon my nosiness. Or ignore this question.)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Not nosy at all.

My father told me when I was older and asked him, "Why do you always say I was born old?" he replied something to the effect that 1) I seemed always to have a very strong sense of what is right and just, especially in regard to how to treat others (I would share anything without prompting), which leads into 2) I never allowed "herd mentality" or a desire to "fit in with the crowd" affect me, especially if it conflicted with my sense of what was right and just; 3) I could spot a liar and manipulator from a mile away; 4) did not suffer fools gladly; 5) matured intellectually very early--when my peers were reading Judy Blume, I was reading Nathaniel Hawthorne; and 6) from a very early age, showed a level of introspection, conscience, and self-control, especially of my emotions, that was unusual. He told me that at four I was like a little old lady. In other words, I guess he meant that what others learn throughout life seem to be characteristics I was born with.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

Wow: that's quite a compliment he was paying you!

And there's hardly a point in your list I could claim for myself: re: 1) I'm totally confused about what's wrong or right; re: 2) I know too well how much I depend on the crowd; re: 3) not only do I let others betray me, I even try to fool myself; re: 4) I wouldn't recognize a fool; re: 5) I've always got obsessed about authors I could not yet understand and laid them down when I would have been mature enough; re: 6) a lot of introspection, but very poor self-control. (Fortunately, I'm indulgent enough to still kind of like myself. Also: I don't want you to read this as something self-deprecatory.)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I don't read it as self-deprecatory at all.

The downside of what he meant, though, is that being this way made me also somewhat melancholy, although I've learned to live with that; it's not so bad :) nor is it the same thing as depressed. Also, I'm somewhat cynical because I've always lived with "what is" rather than "what could be." I seem to lack a capacity for self-justification or self-rationalization for doing wrong which at times has made me miserable but I'll stand by my principles even if they make me suffer or cost me dearly. I have also been interpreted by those who have betrayed me or made me ethically or morally uncomfortable as cold because once I perceive this trait in another, I just cut that person out of my life, no explanations. Just shut the door and don't look back. So mostly I'm alone rather than having a wide circle of friends.

[siamhussein.livejournal.com]

The problem is one of low academic standards and too much spending. Those youths today who would have otherwise dropped out of high school to end up garbagemen in 1950 are now admitted to institutions of their choice. The university system admits too many Charlie Starkweathers.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

That's exactly right, too. The exact same kind of mindset--no internal life whatsoever--and that person cannot be educated at the university level even though he can go to a university.

That reminds me--last night I was listening to a program on NPR which assessed university learning in the United States as opposed to other international schools. The program opened with a statement by two freshmen, one a young lady starting at university in the States; the other a young man starting at a university in India.

The question, "What is a college education to you?" was put to them both.

She said: "A few classes. I want to join a sorority, you know; party sometimes. The only reason I'm going is so I can get a job someday."

He said: "It is a very serious thing. When I go to university, I know that I only have two choices about how I will spend my days--academics or... academics. There is nothing else."

Enough said.