This one is fantastic, wow. I do the same thing with music that I love, frantically looking up when albums were written and recorded on Wikipedia and comparing that to the age of the songwriters and musicians. I’ve done it for years, I don’t know why I still do because I don’t even play music as seriously as I used to.
Then pointing out the callers to your inner-child, holy. What an image, and something I think we all do, however we come across humans that are in worse off situations than ourselves.
Yeah I don't know where this age obsession comes from. I've talked to others about it as well. I'm newly thirty and I think the change in decades has exacerbated that behavior in me. It's likely the reason we all fear child prodigies haha
This reminded of when I used to volunteer at a crisis center. Some calls were very difficult to digest. People have unique stories that stay with you. I sometimes wonder what happened to a lot of them and how they are. Thanks for this piece, William :)
Watching the helpers gives me hope, other than helping.
I was told to let go of the outcome, if and when I have done all I possibly could do, to help another.
Easier said than done.
Yet, if i don't see to it, that I recharge myself, I won't be of much help... balance ... this too shall pass, God help me!
The whole age thing.. I blame the rat race and the beauty industry... from a very early age on, we get this mesaage of go, go, go, ya gotta be someone, ya gotta achieve, get things done, climb the ladder ...of course all money related ...comparing ourselves with others .. in a place where our children will start their life after school with a mountain of dept... running and surviving. No wonder we constanly feel like we're not fast enough, not good enough, not rich enough... never realizing that nobody really wins this race.
The poor have gotten trampled by the rats, the middle is in constant survival mode and the top has sold it's soul.
The beauty industry, shiney magazines and movies have given us a very unrealistic and unhealthy way of looking at us in our natural state.. appearances is all that matters, we are again just not good enough, beautiful enough, tall enough... we end up wanting to be younger and younger.
We ( some ) have stopped looking at reality.. just too painful ( not just when it comes to looks ) after you closed that fashion magazine, never thinking how fake these images are, that nobody looks like that unless they have spend hours in that make up chair, a ton of light is applied just right and then comes editing.
So we pretend, hide and put our masks on, with or without make-up.
We end up in a situation where we now, not only have to live our lives but also have to create this false personalty, this "avatar" just to fit in... it's like living two lives, all at once and we don't get to enjoy either, time is flying by and again we feel we don't have enough time.
People seem to have forgotten that life is finite, every moment is precious and that we shouldn't waste time pretending to be someone elseto the point wanting to live forever, even denying death...
When I tell people that I smoke, they get all preachy, selfrighteous and uppety on me... until I tell them: its not like anybody gets out alive, only a few die of good health :) and no, i don't want to live forever, i want to enjoy every moment, I want to lay on my deathbed thinking : wow! What a ride!
Not: shoulda, coulda, woulda.
We also live in a system that keeps us as busy as possible into old age, telling us we can fullfill our dreams and go on adventures when we are in our mid 60's, often sick and physically not able to travel, jump out of that airplane or go river rafting anymore ... hoping, ( and these days are actively helping that along by keeping us sick and stuck in the medical treadmill ) of course, that we die before that so they don't have to pay for our hard earned retirement.
Thank you for these thoughts! I agree--the rat race and the social media bifurcation into "real-self" and avatar is taxing and illusory. In face, it is a distraction from helping others--if we spend our days worrying how we are perceived or constructing digital selves so far removed from who we are, have we helped anyone but ourselves?
And absolutely, you mention the need to recharge yourself. This is crucial. The truth of putting your mask on before helping others earns its keep in the pantheon of cliche.
"One of the most unsettling things about this job is the perpetual state of not knowing. Every caller has a story, yet I seldom learn their endings."
It keeps gnawing at you... then time passes and you don't think about it, then you hear or read or smell something and bam, it's back and you'll never know.
Yeah with the slight hitch that my Oppenheimer experience differs from the rest of the world in as much as the lights went on 2/3rds through the movie for a reason we shall not go into here. suffice to say, the odds of that happening are rather slim to none, yet it happens. when the lights went back out and the movie continued no one was really watching the movie anymore...
Ahh yes, such a paradox isn't it?! To long to be a king amongst kings, but revel as the king amongst cripples. Savior complex fueled by oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. A helpaholic myself, I can identify! You captured it perfectly here. And while time IS the great subtractor, it's also the great divider. As you approach middle age, there's less to compare as lifetracks diverge—one offspring goes to college, another to kindergarten, a new career starts, early retirement, taking up woodworking, a move to Bali, a cancer diagnosis, the first marathon, the last alcoholic drink, the Great American Novel, the sixth run-through of every episode of The Office. By your mid 40s, no one is watching you anymore, so all bets are off. Plus, the risk of failure is less of an embarrassment issue and more of a thrill as mortality winds down. If I were to go back to Age 30 and change a thing, I'd spend less time pouring myself into the cups of my Others and give myself a juicier helping. My crippled subjects are all long gone now, my crown collects dust in their basements. My reign did nothing but handicap my self-worth. To quote yourself :) "I console myself by intoning good things come to those who wait, but then again, so does atrophy."
Time as the great divider really hit hard. Damn, I always look forward to hearing from you, your thoughts are always so wise and eye opening. I will strive to give myself a juicer helping for sure :)
Great writing, Will. Damn. I do the age thing as well. At the age that Alexander the Great died the king of the world, I barely got around to reading about Alexander the Great.
Thanks, Bradley! I feel the same way lol When you're in middle school and high school learning how Napoleon became a general at 24, it's inspiring. But, once you cross that threshold it becomes a slap in the face.
So immersive, this style of writing. Describing bits and pieces, glimpses of the job to first pique the readers' interest and let them perceive the quirks of the job before jumping into fuller explanations. Thanks for the insight into a crisis workers' perspective; it is certainly an interesting one!
This one is fantastic, wow. I do the same thing with music that I love, frantically looking up when albums were written and recorded on Wikipedia and comparing that to the age of the songwriters and musicians. I’ve done it for years, I don’t know why I still do because I don’t even play music as seriously as I used to.
Then pointing out the callers to your inner-child, holy. What an image, and something I think we all do, however we come across humans that are in worse off situations than ourselves.
Amazing work as always, Will.
Thanks for the kind words, Bob!
Yeah I don't know where this age obsession comes from. I've talked to others about it as well. I'm newly thirty and I think the change in decades has exacerbated that behavior in me. It's likely the reason we all fear child prodigies haha
This reminded of when I used to volunteer at a crisis center. Some calls were very difficult to digest. People have unique stories that stay with you. I sometimes wonder what happened to a lot of them and how they are. Thanks for this piece, William :)
I know what you mean...sometimes you're just hit with the craving to know what happened. It's a real "Where are They Now?" type of thing.
Thank you!
Painful...
Watching the helpers gives me hope, other than helping.
I was told to let go of the outcome, if and when I have done all I possibly could do, to help another.
Easier said than done.
Yet, if i don't see to it, that I recharge myself, I won't be of much help... balance ... this too shall pass, God help me!
The whole age thing.. I blame the rat race and the beauty industry... from a very early age on, we get this mesaage of go, go, go, ya gotta be someone, ya gotta achieve, get things done, climb the ladder ...of course all money related ...comparing ourselves with others .. in a place where our children will start their life after school with a mountain of dept... running and surviving. No wonder we constanly feel like we're not fast enough, not good enough, not rich enough... never realizing that nobody really wins this race.
The poor have gotten trampled by the rats, the middle is in constant survival mode and the top has sold it's soul.
The beauty industry, shiney magazines and movies have given us a very unrealistic and unhealthy way of looking at us in our natural state.. appearances is all that matters, we are again just not good enough, beautiful enough, tall enough... we end up wanting to be younger and younger.
We ( some ) have stopped looking at reality.. just too painful ( not just when it comes to looks ) after you closed that fashion magazine, never thinking how fake these images are, that nobody looks like that unless they have spend hours in that make up chair, a ton of light is applied just right and then comes editing.
So we pretend, hide and put our masks on, with or without make-up.
We end up in a situation where we now, not only have to live our lives but also have to create this false personalty, this "avatar" just to fit in... it's like living two lives, all at once and we don't get to enjoy either, time is flying by and again we feel we don't have enough time.
People seem to have forgotten that life is finite, every moment is precious and that we shouldn't waste time pretending to be someone elseto the point wanting to live forever, even denying death...
When I tell people that I smoke, they get all preachy, selfrighteous and uppety on me... until I tell them: its not like anybody gets out alive, only a few die of good health :) and no, i don't want to live forever, i want to enjoy every moment, I want to lay on my deathbed thinking : wow! What a ride!
Not: shoulda, coulda, woulda.
We also live in a system that keeps us as busy as possible into old age, telling us we can fullfill our dreams and go on adventures when we are in our mid 60's, often sick and physically not able to travel, jump out of that airplane or go river rafting anymore ... hoping, ( and these days are actively helping that along by keeping us sick and stuck in the medical treadmill ) of course, that we die before that so they don't have to pay for our hard earned retirement.
And deep down we know it...
no wonder we are pretending...
Thank you for these thoughts! I agree--the rat race and the social media bifurcation into "real-self" and avatar is taxing and illusory. In face, it is a distraction from helping others--if we spend our days worrying how we are perceived or constructing digital selves so far removed from who we are, have we helped anyone but ourselves?
And absolutely, you mention the need to recharge yourself. This is crucial. The truth of putting your mask on before helping others earns its keep in the pantheon of cliche.
Thanks for reading :)
The pantheon of cliche!!! Yes. LOL
Thank you for hour self- less- nes!!
The armor of love instead of a mask of ignorance.
"One of the most unsettling things about this job is the perpetual state of not knowing. Every caller has a story, yet I seldom learn their endings."
It keeps gnawing at you... then time passes and you don't think about it, then you hear or read or smell something and bam, it's back and you'll never know.
Oh yes, something triggers and the thread of a story you thought had vanished comes rushing forward.
Yeah, they sneak up on you... like my Oppenheimer theatre experience when I read this here 😅
Haha exactly like the bomb blast in Oppenheimer !!
Yeah with the slight hitch that my Oppenheimer experience differs from the rest of the world in as much as the lights went on 2/3rds through the movie for a reason we shall not go into here. suffice to say, the odds of that happening are rather slim to none, yet it happens. when the lights went back out and the movie continued no one was really watching the movie anymore...
sounds like an extra layer of experience lol
you can say that again. I doubt I can ever watch that movie again without that layer surfacing. c'est la vie. Nolan should have made the film shorter!
Ahh yes, such a paradox isn't it?! To long to be a king amongst kings, but revel as the king amongst cripples. Savior complex fueled by oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. A helpaholic myself, I can identify! You captured it perfectly here. And while time IS the great subtractor, it's also the great divider. As you approach middle age, there's less to compare as lifetracks diverge—one offspring goes to college, another to kindergarten, a new career starts, early retirement, taking up woodworking, a move to Bali, a cancer diagnosis, the first marathon, the last alcoholic drink, the Great American Novel, the sixth run-through of every episode of The Office. By your mid 40s, no one is watching you anymore, so all bets are off. Plus, the risk of failure is less of an embarrassment issue and more of a thrill as mortality winds down. If I were to go back to Age 30 and change a thing, I'd spend less time pouring myself into the cups of my Others and give myself a juicier helping. My crippled subjects are all long gone now, my crown collects dust in their basements. My reign did nothing but handicap my self-worth. To quote yourself :) "I console myself by intoning good things come to those who wait, but then again, so does atrophy."
Time as the great divider really hit hard. Damn, I always look forward to hearing from you, your thoughts are always so wise and eye opening. I will strive to give myself a juicer helping for sure :)
Aww shucks :) I'm wading into my old crone phase like a warm bath. Now get juicin!
That atrophy line is a killer!
Haha thanks Kevin!!
😁
stunning.
Thanks, EJ!
Great writing, Will. Damn. I do the age thing as well. At the age that Alexander the Great died the king of the world, I barely got around to reading about Alexander the Great.
Thanks, Bradley! I feel the same way lol When you're in middle school and high school learning how Napoleon became a general at 24, it's inspiring. But, once you cross that threshold it becomes a slap in the face.
So immersive, this style of writing. Describing bits and pieces, glimpses of the job to first pique the readers' interest and let them perceive the quirks of the job before jumping into fuller explanations. Thanks for the insight into a crisis workers' perspective; it is certainly an interesting one!
Thanks, Bethel!!
Amazing. Well done. And thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks so much, Kevin!
Truly heavy is the headset. I appreciate all you do.