the joy of elevated thoughts

Sound bites would have us believe that life is a journey

• from womb to tomb; 
• from cradle to grave; 
• from cot to coffin; 
• from crib to care home. 

And here are three systems of stages to flesh out the fundamental theme:

FOUR STAGES: The ancient Hindu system in India imagined that there were four stages - student (till 24), householder (24-48), hermit (48-72) and wandering ascetic (72-demize).

SEVEN STAGES: William Shakespeare in 16th century England imagined that there were seven ages in the life of man - infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, second childhood.

EIGHT STAGES: In the 21st century West there is commonly felt to be eight stages – pre-natal, infant, child, teenager, young mature, old mature, retired, geriatric.

I am now 65 years old and retired. I tend towards being a hermit, a pantaloon in second childhood and old mature - but not yet geriatric. My interests and energy levels have changed over the years and this is in keeping with my long term battle cries – “the only certainty is doubt” and “the only constant thing is change”. And I am still going with the flow. And I have no regrets.

I first came across William Wordsworth’s (1770-1850) poem Tintern Abbey when I was a teenager. I took to the idea of there being “abundant recompense” with aging. After half a century the poem still speaks to me, and presumably to many other people:

“For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity, nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chasten and subdue.

And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean, and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man, a motion and a spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things.”

Poetic bullets –

• ‘the still sad music of humanity’
• ‘the joy of elevated thoughts’
• ‘a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things’

I have blasted beyond the status anxiety that came with the hierarchies of work, play and academic siloes. I can say what I like on a blog and people can love it or leave it. The ICT is almost free and it allows sharing the joy of elevated thought – whether poetic or scientific. Yoh!

http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/p/fourstages.htm
http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/as-others-see-us.html
http://www.rc.umd.edu/sites/default/RCOldSite/www/rchs/reader/tabbey.html