Time Travel in Life & Legacy
Life stories and individual memory define our roles, however small, in history. The good news of growing old is that we have more to tell.
Life stories and individual memory define our roles, however small, in history. The good news of growing old is that we have more to tell.
The ailments, agist stereotypes, and ultimate end-point of death itself rarely figure in the minds of the young. Until, that is, the long-term consequences of our short-term denial become more and more obvious as the years pass.
The magic trick that Chast performs in her cartoons is to make laughter out of the dirty secret of life: it is an alternately stressful and humdrum affair, and then it is over.
"Our span of life is divided into parts; it consists of large circles enclosing smaller. One circle embraces and bounds the rest; it reaches from birth to the last day of existence."
No one—in either real or reel life—wants to confront the difficulties of aging, the imminence of dying. The point is best proved by Leo McCarey’s glorious Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), the most unbearably moving and resolutely unsparing work Hollywood has ever made about the elderly.
The English romantic poet speaks to the envy of old age.
Future businesses may have as many as five different generations working together. Here is how to best cultivate an environment in which everyone works their best.
The witch that came (the withered hag) To wash the steps with pail and rag Was once the beauty Abishag, The picture pride of Hollywood. Too many fall from great and good For you to doubt the likelihood. Die early and avoid the fate. Or…
From Bill Withers' "Grandma's Hands" to Jack Yellin and Ted Shapiro's "Life Begins at Forty," music has our number when it comes to growing old.