I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where six of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic was chosen by Maria the gaelikaa. The five other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, gaelikaa, Maxi, Paul, Shackman, and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!
Being the senior most of the LBC gang, my take is likely to be more poignant than unemotional. Unlike the young, I have little to look forward to whereas have a treasure trove of memories and recollections of so many things in the past. This sense of wonder at my past rather than the excitement of a possible future has been brought out so well by two great souls that I will never be able to write like they did.
1.
“The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.”
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero.
2.
“…..the opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives. But also the potentialities alone are so affected. For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble field of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.
From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past – the potentialities that they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized – and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”
~ Viktor E Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning.
And how does one go about writing a short blog post on those assets? I shall not even try.
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