Decline
February is not the friendliest of months when it comes to time. With an arbitrary deadline to write something on a monthly basis, I was expecting a few more days to procrastinate. But now here I am on day 28, forced to put something out. So bear with me, lower the expectations: it’s a short one.
The other day, walking by my bedroom mirror, I stopped for a few minutes too long to look at my face. While this mirror-gazing is normally just an embarrassing instinct of vanity, this time was different. I was caught off-guard, observing myself like a foreign specimen: when the hell did all these gray hairs arrive in my beard? Once denial ran its course — attempts at describing the identified hairs as really blonde and in “weird” lighting — I was forced to succumb to the realities of aging.
Life often feels like a gradual progression of things. But aging is more akin to a stark lurch forward into an alternate reality of which you’re now forced to live. There’s the surprise: have the bags under my eyes always been this dark at 7am? And then the (often futile) attempts at control: maybe I should try Gua sha, or red light therapy, or look-I-know-it’s-crazy and crossing a literal barrier, but like also….. what’s up with peptides?
Apparently our collective asking of these questions are worth ~$80B dollars a year, which is maybe sort of sad, but also sort of consoling — we’re all connected in vain and not alone in our shame. I put sweet almond oil on my face every night, which I’m convinced does little to nothing except make me look like a sad salamander. And yet I keep doing it.
One way to summarize it all could be that we are obsessed with doing anything possible to stop, or ideally reverse, our decline.
The most obvious example is our physical decline, where we just, simply put, don’t want to think about dying. Last Friday, I had a day off work, and Caitlin and I went to go see Hamnet. It’s a beautiful film with remarkable performances (all hail Jesse Buckley). It’s also centered around death, particularly the death of a child, and while I was fully immersed in the story, I was also aware of an underlying psychological distance I placed between myself and the characters. It was as if my subconscious impulsively stood up a shield and kept repeating the mantra: this will not happen to you, it’s just a movie. Let me tell you though, that sure didn’t stop the crying!
Maybe some people’s psyches are stronger and hearts more open, but whenever I’m confronted with capital-d “Death” I can’t help but try and compartmentalize it — a can to be kicked far down the road; a truth to remain caged behind a screen.
In my mid-twenties, I’d somewhat regularly attend this event in San Francisco called You’re Going to Die. It was essentially an open-mic night to talk about and process death through whatever creative expression one desired. While it was at times uncomfortable, it was also often funny and cathartic and, at moments, I’d say profound. Now of course there’s nothing new here, as the practice of confronting death has a rich history across many branches of religion and philosophy. But it’s seemingly gotten lost in our current culture where we so rarely deal with mortality in any public or communal forum. Someone’s often got to kick the bucket for us to talk about it.
Beyond actually dying, we’re also terrified of decline in our professional and societal standings, which might consider a figurative “death” in status. Writing for the Atlantic, Arthur C Brooks covered the natural arch of professional decline. In it includes sobering stats, like how research shows the most common age for producing a magnum opus is the late 30s. And a somewhat funny, but also poignant story Brooks overhead on an airplane, that shows how, for some, actual death can become preferred over death of status.
It’s not true that no one needs you anymore.” These words came from an elderly woman sitting behind me on a late-night flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. The plane was dark and quiet. A man I assumed to be her husband murmured almost inaudibly in response, something to the effect of “I wish I was dead.” Again, the woman: “Oh, stop saying that.” I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but couldn’t help it. I listened with morbid fascination, forming an image of the man in my head as they talked. I imagined someone who had worked hard all his life in relative obscurity, someone with unfulfilled dreams—perhaps of the degree he never attained, the career he never pursued, the company he never started. At the end of the flight, as the lights switched on, I finally got a look at the desolate man. I was shocked. I recognized him—he was, and still is, world-famous. Then in his mid‑80s, he was beloved as a hero for his courage, patriotism, and accomplishments many decades ago.
The essay continues on, providing guidance for how one might navigate professional decline more gracefully. But more importantly, it challenges us to poke holes in a rather limiting definition of “decline”, because while some capabilities may peak in one’s 30s, other strengths (and of course wisdom) might not even begin to form until much, much later in life (should that pesky death hold out long enough!). Decline can often be thought of as a straight trajectory downwards from some optimal peak. But things often have seasons.
And that brings me to the the irony of writing about decline on the heels of winter, when the renewal of spring is right around the corner. I take solace in nature reminding us that change exists within cycles. This is why I love daffodils so much, or really any bulb for that matter, as they arise as early reminders that dark days will soon fade into light. It’s hard to find hope in much of this world, but it’s also hard not to feel something closely resembling it when you see a picture of crocus popping through snow.
Closing quote
I’ve never read E.M Forrester, but his often referenced quote is well suited for this month: “Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him”.
Parting song
I thought about choosing The Circle of Life. But no, to balance out the morbidness of this month’s theme, here’s some Dopamine from Robyn.