Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Don't know just where this belongs. But, just passing my 70th birthday, I realized that some assumptions I have had since my youth badly need revision.
When I was young, I enjoyed being around older people. The stories they told about their youth intrigued me, and gave me an insight into a differant world than the one I was experiancing. And they all talked of being old and lonely. And I assumed that they meant that they were isolated, and did not have that many freinds. Even though I observed that many of them were socially and physically active.
Now I realize that the word 'lonely' meant something else for them, than the lonelyness that I understood then. In fact, it should be a seperate word, and may be in another language. For what they meant was the lack of shared experiance. We all have friends and relatives with which a single word or phrase in a given situation can send us into gales of laughter, or bring a stab of old grief to the surface.
But, in the natural order of things, our friends complete their circle of life, and we see them no more. And the mutual experiances that we shared become memories only we have. Memories that cannot be completely shared even by the best of artists or authors.
The friends that there were some very special things that they loved. And we see something and think, instinctively, 'wait until I see X'. Except we will never see X again. And lonely does not cover the feeling at that time.
We need another word.
When I was young, I enjoyed being around older people. The stories they told about their youth intrigued me, and gave me an insight into a differant world than the one I was experiancing. And they all talked of being old and lonely. And I assumed that they meant that they were isolated, and did not have that many freinds. Even though I observed that many of them were socially and physically active.
Now I realize that the word 'lonely' meant something else for them, than the lonelyness that I understood then. In fact, it should be a seperate word, and may be in another language. For what they meant was the lack of shared experiance. We all have friends and relatives with which a single word or phrase in a given situation can send us into gales of laughter, or bring a stab of old grief to the surface.
But, in the natural order of things, our friends complete their circle of life, and we see them no more. And the mutual experiances that we shared become memories only we have. Memories that cannot be completely shared even by the best of artists or authors.
The friends that there were some very special things that they loved. And we see something and think, instinctively, 'wait until I see X'. Except we will never see X again. And lonely does not cover the feeling at that time.
We need another word.