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THE HUMAN CONDITION
Life In The Country of Old Age Is Feeling A Bit Like Sysiphus Pushing His Boulder
An endless uphill struggle
Sisyphus was the cunning and ingenious king of Ephyra, renowned in Greek mythology for cheating death. Twice. That didn’t sit well with the gods so they condemned him to endlessly push an enormous boulder up a hill. When he got it to the top, it rolled back down and he’d have to start all over again.
A never-ending and pointless task that left him exhausted and without hope. Kind of the way I feel when I slap on Clinique anti-age serum, cover my grey roots with Fabulous Fawn and ride my stationary bike to ward off physical decline.
Welcome to Life in the Country of Old Age. Or at least the way it feels right now. I used to vow that I’d never be the type of old codger who blathers on endlessly about aches and pains — now I’m 78 and blather on to my partner about my assorted maladies and he, less often, blathers on about his. It’s a difficult topic to avoid.
An aching back, for example, can focus the mind to the exclusion of much else. Mine aches, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. It’s my Sisyphean boulder. I do exercises meant to strengthen and relieve the pain, get up from the desk at regular intervals to stretch. I’m even…
