When I was a student, we used to talk about what was going on in our souls. Now we make polite conversation. We used to "set the world to rights". Now anything of epic proportions is ventured tentatively, and to close friends only. To see if they're in the mood. We used to revel in exploring the mysteries of life and death and consciousness. We'd speculate wildly about radical schemes, and shout about love to the sky. Nothing was taboo. I know it was a bit strident sometimes, a bit direct and unhewn, but it was in some ways randomly philosophical. And I liked that. Now we're features journalists. Like Sunday magazine articles, each carefully hedged opinion is as unlikely to give offence as it is to raise a flicker of real excitement. I often find. I wonder what happened in the years in between. Did something change our minds?
6 comments:
No. It's just that, by the mid-30s, everybody's clinically dead from the neck up. Out in the provinces, it's even worse.
At least I'm not alone in thinking this, then! After having got into some really good conversations at a party last night, I think I may have been too scathing. It's certainly not always true, but more often than not.
After a few years of nine to five at Harrow college or any other soulless institution or company of any sort, it's enough to kill the creative and passionate thinking of most mortals. You have to be a real genious to enter "the real world" and still keep the spark going.
I might still have a feeble flame shining somewhere... I'm just too exhausted all the time to rekindle it :)
Who goes there? Another ex-inmate of Harrow College?
Could it be because when one is nearing middle age (sorry!)one has gone a long way towards sorting out what one thinks about life, death, existence etc? In one's student days one is still trying to make up one's mind on all these questions, as are the friends one is mixing with.
I think that's right. But I still enjoy hearing what other people have made of all that, and maybe getting into some (sub)-Socratic dialogues about it.
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