{"id":710,"date":"2012-10-11T15:13:58","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T23:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=710"},"modified":"2012-10-11T15:13:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T23:13:58","slug":"a-world-too-wide-for-his-shrunk-shank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=710","title":{"rendered":"“A World Too Wide For His Shrunk Shank”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This age-ist phrase was used by William Shakespeare in a little speech given by the character Jaques in the play, As You Like It<\/em> (Act 2, Scene 7), to describe the 6th of the \u201cSeven Ages of Man.\u201d This sixth age is older than the \u201cJustice\u201d (the 5th age), and senility, the seventh, age. The shank is the lower leg and the loss of muscle volume in the elder years. <\/p>\n

Overall I like this general Seven Ages of Man<\/em> passage\u2014I\u2019ve liked it since I was a teenager, and even illustrated it back then<\/a>, though I\u2019m ashamed at my own ageist stereotypes. I like the opening first phrase, \u201cAll the world\u2019s a stage\u201d to introduce the metaphor of life as a kind of theatre\u2014this metaphor underlies my systemic development of Moreno\u2019s role theory\u2014I call it \u201cRole Dynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on another theme, contemplating elderhood, it occurs to me that for the retirement years, between 65 and heading well into the 90s, the drift from the vigor of the \u201cJustice\u201d and the frailty of the \u201cPantaloon\u201d is very gradual indeed. The transition may take 20 or even 30 years—longer than all the time it took to get through the first four ages—the mewling infant, the schoolboy, the lover, and the soldier. Many people in my retirement community are pretty vigorous, but here or there, they begin the gradual slide. Indeed there are some who are a bit more frail, and other residence settings have a growing population of these folks. The point I\u2019m making, though, is that this extended transition age has its own \u201cstrange, eventful history\u201d of many sub-processes. (I\u2019m in the middle of many myself!)<\/p>\n

The world meanwhile changes and folks in my age group, in the 7th to 10th decade of life, we notice that these changes often involve a stretch of attitude. Lots of things\u2014not just gasoline prices\u2014movie theater tickets, etc.\u2014have just gone up and up, and that is in fact emotionally stressful. <\/p>\n

Some get grumpy about it, while others open to surrender—it\u2019s an opportunity for wisdom-ing! Prices have gone up faster than inflation, our savings, social security\u2014so we\u2019re losing the value of what we\u2019ve saved. Should we protest? Will a change of government help or hurt? Such concerns parallel all this.<\/p>\n

Or is it that the world is becoming too wide for not just our shrunk shank, but everyone\u2019s? (Many who have talked about the accelerating pace of change in the postmodern era of the 21st century have noted this.) Could it be that our generation just notices all these changes more poignantly? Could it be that the \u201cyounger generation\u201d hasn\u2019t got the time to notice, or the long history of when in the olden days things seemed, well, different. (Of course change has always been happening, and I\u2019m just wondering if we elders notice it a bit more\u2014that\u2019s the point here.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been reminiscing about the many ornaments of my life\u2014the enjoyment of MAD when it was a comic book for a couple of years before it became a magazine; of science fiction and the work of the recently deceased Ray Bradbury<\/a>, Isaac Asimov, and others; of the funny camp songs, popular songs, naughty songs, folk and show-tune songs\u2014all which we sang. I learned a lot of the words to a lot of songs! But I find that few people know the words to songs, and even fewer in the younger generation. It might make an interesting survey. Has the world grown too large for my shrunk shank? I am quite vital and involved in a lot of things, but then again, I\u2019m also falling behind in knowing (or caring) about the latest regarding television shows, sports, so-called musicians, glossy magazines, celebrities (they all look alike to me), etc. Am I just a fuddy-duddy or is a certain amount of this complex rather inevitable for someone who\u2019s lived long enough.<\/p>\n

Parts of the song \u201cYoung at Heart<\/a>\u201d resonate\u2014and I sing it in the shower\u2014but other parts seem foolishly age-ist. But again, that\u2019s part of a culture that has offered more dental and physical health to mid-aged and elders than ever before, so the socio-cultural predicament of non-exceptional elders\u2014our vitality and interest in celebrating it\u2014is on the whole a bit new, too. Well, that\u2019s enough rumination on reminiscence for now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This age-ist phrase was used by William Shakespeare in a little speech given by the character Jaques in the play, As You Like It (Act 2, Scene 7), to describe the 6th of the \u201cSeven Ages of Man.\u201d This sixth age is older than the \u201cJustice\u201d (the 5th age), and senility, the seventh, age. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16,15,13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-papers","category-favoritethings","category-spirituality-and-philosophy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions\/711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}