Comments on: Procrastination

By: Sterling Camden

Sterling Camden — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:57:25 +0000

As self-evident as that seems, it’s a lesson I’ve been slow to learn all my life. I’ve tended to follow a role strictly for as long as I could tolerate it, then suddenly rebel and destroy everything in an iconoclastic fury. It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to understand at a practical level that it doesn’t have to be either extreme — that we can (and do) choose every individual, minute act of conforming or departing. Real freedom is not being forced to make an all-or-nothing decision.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:20:08 +0000

We get a lot of things from our past. Expectations about our own old age, or the values we ascribe to that state, for instance. So it could be either way, and both.
This made me think of the members of the Rolling Stones : they are probably not the kind of old men they expected old men to be, before they were old themselves. That’s the funny thing about life, we don’t have to accept the roles we are offered, and sometimes happiness is in scorning them – and sometimes it is in embracing them.

By: Sterling Camden

Sterling Camden — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:40:45 +0000

That’s an interesting and refreshing take on it. I’ve been thinking that the old man is an image of myself that I fear — unable to move, and therefore worthless. But I didn’t have a clear idea about the meaning of the ending. Thanks!

By: Andreas

Andreas — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:08:27 +0000

Interesting. Not letting the past dictate what you’re left with – so different from the way we’re accustomed to letting things happen, is it not?