{"id":2795,"date":"2009-01-12T16:28:30","date_gmt":"2009-01-12T21:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=2795"},"modified":"2009-01-12T16:38:30","modified_gmt":"2009-01-12T21:38:30","slug":"defy-the-languid-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/defy-the-languid-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Defy the Languid Moment&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are lots of traditions of &#8220;how to grow old&#8221; in less than pleasant ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s the cantankerous strong-willed (and occasionally frolicsome) oldster. In my mind, the template for this tradition was Twin Peaks Mayor Dwayne Milford, as shown in this scene (&#8220;I don&#8217;t wanna talk. I wanna shoot!&#8221;):<\/li>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\" data=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/bGPGqktaW8M&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/bGPGqktaW8M&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><br \/>\n(See what followed this scene by scrolling a little more than halfway down the page at the <em>Twin Peaks Episode Guide: <a title=\"Twin Peaks Episode Guide: Episode 21\" href=\"http:\/\/twinpeaksepisodeguide.blogspot.com\/2008\/06\/episode-21.html\" target=\"_blank\">Episode 21<\/a><\/em>. Search for the text string &#8220;Act 4&#8221; if you&#8217;re impatient.)<\/p>\n<li>Then there&#8217;s the sort of soft-focus aging depicted in movies like <em>Cocoon<\/em> and <em>On Golden Pond<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Of course, there are always plenty of news reports &#8212; no longer even remotely funny &#8212; of the aged wandering away from nursing homes, never to be seen again&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;or, alternatively, of their getting behind the wheel of a car and plowing through markets filled with mothers and children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Diana Athill (photo from Intelligent Life)\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/athill_sm.jpg?resize=167%2C250&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"250\" \/>Thank God for the counter-examples.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Telegraph<\/em> (UK) recently reprinted an <a title=\"The Telegraph: Interview with Diana Athill\" href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/books\/4143628\/Interview-with-Costa-Award-Winner-Diana-Athill.html\" target=\"_blank\">interview<\/a> with someone with her head screwed on straight about getting older: &#8220;At 91, Diana Athill has moved from a distinguished career in publishing to success as a memoirist &#8212; and has now won the Costa prize for biography.&#8221; Excerpts:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;At first I thought there wasn&#8217;t much to say about growing older except that it&#8217;s bloody. Seventy is the beginning of being old, I felt really old when I was 80 and really really old when I was 90.&#8221; What she calls the ebbing of sex comes in the late sixties. &#8220;Rather a relief, not going to bed with anyone any more. One has the chance to enjoy men for other reasons.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If she had one piece of advice it would be to get up in the morning. &#8220;What you must do is defy the languid movement, get out of bed and make yourself do something.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>What does get better, she said, is not minding what people think. &#8220;Though I enjoy bothering about clothes and I don&#8217;t like being seen without a good foundation to hide the veins and the shiny bits. My hair is very short because I&#8217;ve hardly any left, just a spider&#8217;s web over a pink scalp, but my dear man in Regent&#8217;s Park who cuts it agrees it&#8217;s not wig time yet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s false cheerfulness to say things get better because most things get worse, but occasionally things that are rarer in one&#8217;s life can be more delicious: a recent visit to York, for instance &#8212; absolute heaven when I got there. Or seeing the Russians at the Royal Academy from a self-propelling wheelchair, or playing with little Alexander who&#8217;s just moved in downstairs. One of the things that make me love writing or looking at pictures is that you become unconscious of yourself. Anything absorbing makes you become not &#8216;I&#8217; but &#8216;eye&#8217; &#8212; you escape the ego.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And, speaking of a reviewer of her most recent book, who had said,&#8221;It is sad to think that the secret of a spry and contented old age is selfishness&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Selfishness,&#8221; she says. &#8220;A sobering thought &#8212; I think the bastard&#8217;s probably right.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Hat tip to <em><a title=\"Nuts &amp; Mutton: Growing Old, with Grace\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nutsandmutton.com\/2009\/01\/10\/growing-old-with-grace\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nuts &amp; Mutton<\/a>.<\/em> The<em> Telegraph<\/em> article originally <a title=\"Intelligent Life: Diana Athill\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moreintelligentlife.com\/story\/diana-athill-90\" target=\"_blank\">appeared<\/a> in last summer&#8217;s issue of <em>Intelligent Life<\/em>.<em>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are lots of traditions of &#8220;how to grow old&#8221; in less than pleasant ways: There&#8217;s the cantankerous strong-willed (and occasionally frolicsome) oldster. In my mind, the template for this tradition was Twin Peaks Mayor Dwayne Milford, as shown in this scene (&#8220;I don&#8217;t wanna talk. I wanna shoot!&#8221;): (See what followed this scene by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-J5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2795"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2802,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions\/2802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}