Alan Greenspan say RELAX
Let it never be assumed that turning into a grown-up is easy. It is easy for youth to look at its elder and criticize him for yearning for the 'glory days' gone by. All youth takes in through his gaze is stiff joints and cheeks and hair that have lost that glow of aliveness that is so particular to the young. That glow is what gives youth its beauty, more than any other feature. The elder returns the gaze, feeling like time has cheated him out of what was his. As for anything one has loved and lost, the life-long yearning for the light and quickness and vivid, bright frame-by-frame that is days gone by forever accompanies the increasingly rapid click-click of a life.
And so singers write songs about their days as the hero of their high-school football team, celebrities have their eyes lifted, and parents live vicariously through their children. Youth mocks these last, grasping attempts of elder to reclaim what he once owned just as certainly and unwittingly as youth now does. The young can mock because until his hand slips for what he will realize in an instant is the last time from the hand of the friend of his youth, he has never imagined what it was he has held until that instant. Suddenly, in that moment on a sidewalk, youth feels the anchors loosening from a port in which he had never even known he was moored. This is of course just a metaphor to youth, who has not yet gone, but all who have can forever feel the lingering tug.
This tug, however, cannot compete with the even stronger pull of time, yanking us forward by the arm. At this point in my own life, I feel like I am stumbling along like a leashed puppy lead by a runner, feet periodically not even touching the ground. Much like that puppy, I would imagine, I know I'm being led somewhere but I'm a little bewildered as to the destination. This job, teaching third grade, is not it, I'm pretty sure about that, but what's next? I'm moving at a faster rate than I feel capable of handling, but there aren't any brakes, so I just have to try and steer. That's a lot of simile and metaphor for a situation that probably more people than I realize are experiencing right along with me, but it makes the whole thing easier for me to think about if I decontextualize.
I've been reading "The Age of Turbulence," Alan Greenspan's kind of amazing book, and learning about his life all the sudden got really encouraging, which I admit I was not expecting. We all know that Greenspan is that governmental finance guy, (i.e. the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, I know, pretty foreign stuff to me too), but what I didn't know was that he graduated from high school at the beginning of World War II, having spent most of his time in high school playing baseball, as well as clarinet and saxophone in dance bands. A potentially tubercular spot on his lung kept him from the draft and he began a career as a professional musician in the big-band era. Thinking about this guy, who has become hugely influencial on certainly American, and also global, finance, and the fact that when he was about my age, he was playing Benny Goodman songs for a living...makes me feel a little bit better about my current lack of direction in life. It's easy for us to get caught up in that sharp grip of time, constantly looking ahead, anticipating our next move and trying to beat the deadlines that we set for ourselves, but there's still time. There's still so many years ahead, blank pages, there's still so much time to become who we're eventually going to be. Easy to forget, but leave it to the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve to remind us all to take it easy.
And so singers write songs about their days as the hero of their high-school football team, celebrities have their eyes lifted, and parents live vicariously through their children. Youth mocks these last, grasping attempts of elder to reclaim what he once owned just as certainly and unwittingly as youth now does. The young can mock because until his hand slips for what he will realize in an instant is the last time from the hand of the friend of his youth, he has never imagined what it was he has held until that instant. Suddenly, in that moment on a sidewalk, youth feels the anchors loosening from a port in which he had never even known he was moored. This is of course just a metaphor to youth, who has not yet gone, but all who have can forever feel the lingering tug.
This tug, however, cannot compete with the even stronger pull of time, yanking us forward by the arm. At this point in my own life, I feel like I am stumbling along like a leashed puppy lead by a runner, feet periodically not even touching the ground. Much like that puppy, I would imagine, I know I'm being led somewhere but I'm a little bewildered as to the destination. This job, teaching third grade, is not it, I'm pretty sure about that, but what's next? I'm moving at a faster rate than I feel capable of handling, but there aren't any brakes, so I just have to try and steer. That's a lot of simile and metaphor for a situation that probably more people than I realize are experiencing right along with me, but it makes the whole thing easier for me to think about if I decontextualize.
I've been reading "The Age of Turbulence," Alan Greenspan's kind of amazing book, and learning about his life all the sudden got really encouraging, which I admit I was not expecting. We all know that Greenspan is that governmental finance guy, (i.e. the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, I know, pretty foreign stuff to me too), but what I didn't know was that he graduated from high school at the beginning of World War II, having spent most of his time in high school playing baseball, as well as clarinet and saxophone in dance bands. A potentially tubercular spot on his lung kept him from the draft and he began a career as a professional musician in the big-band era. Thinking about this guy, who has become hugely influencial on certainly American, and also global, finance, and the fact that when he was about my age, he was playing Benny Goodman songs for a living...makes me feel a little bit better about my current lack of direction in life. It's easy for us to get caught up in that sharp grip of time, constantly looking ahead, anticipating our next move and trying to beat the deadlines that we set for ourselves, but there's still time. There's still so many years ahead, blank pages, there's still so much time to become who we're eventually going to be. Easy to forget, but leave it to the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve to remind us all to take it easy.