Letters to the Editor
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Get over yourself.
Crimeny.
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Man, you're only 53
Gary...c'mon...I'm older than you, have two jobs, one of which is drumming 5 nights a week, I'm married to a beautiful 39 year old woman...well, you get the photo. Yea, I'm probably about half way through my trip here, advances in science being what they are and barring unforseeable tragedy, but so what? Eat right, excercise. Go snorkeling on Kauai. Start living again? My question is when and why did you stop?
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Have you talked to an orthopedic surgeon?
My dad's knees are shot but he's in his 80s so it doesn't make much sense for him to do anything about it.
However I worked with a 50 something guy who had been a fanatic jogger for decades. His knees were apparently wrecked by the running so he had them repaired with surgery. He seemed to be quite satisfied with the result. Now that was over 10 years ago. I can only imagine that this type of surgery is even more effective these days.
It probably doesn't make much sense to get hair 'repaired' but knees are another thing entirely.
Cheers.
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Garry Owens
Don't fret. curmudgeon2 is full of shit. I'm betting he's a twenty-something troll who likes to tweak the letter boards.
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hmmm...
Assuredly, Kamiya always impresses me with his erudition and the flow of his prose. And I recognize how easy it is for someone like me to carp about this or that fish he didn't catch. hmmm.
I just kinda continue to suspect analgesic words.
As a painter, I notice the same reflex.
Adorno always championed difficulty and I think he was correct.
Drawing breath is not always drawing a smile of cognitive contentment. In this era, I would suggest mapping more the grin lines of less apparent uncertainty. hmmm.
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Hm.
I have little patience for the pondering of aging of middle-aged, middle-class Americans considering the early death from malnutrition, lack of access to healthcare, etc. that faces many others here and globally. Buddhists learn the concept of death from an early age - you will die, and rot, and there is no avoiding it. It is not dressed up as enlightenment itself. It is simply a step towards understanding life. I can't help but wonder what a different world this would be if Americans TRULY accepted their own mortality at 10, or 20...rather than waiting until 50 to struggle with a notion incongruent to their culture.
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re: Hm.
Dear heart,
The path of the enlightened ones (buddhas) asks that we have patience, for it is a practice of compassion. Patience and acceptance are a moebius strip.
It takes a fair amount of nerve (ignorance) to speak as you do about culture to an author who describes his uncle as "nisei." Do you know what that means?
To Gary: They're doing great things with knee replacement these days. Cheers.
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What is the most important thing
At 54, the blessing of time is to strip away the non essential. Every day I ask myself, "what is the most important thing?" Hint, it's not football ;-)
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Re:re:hm
You are absolutely right that patience is needed, and I thank you for reminding me (truly, no sarcasm whatsoever). I make no claims of being a buddha, or even of being Buddhist.
I mean no ill will towards this author, and I should have made that more clear. I understand he is quite the respectable human being who has been through considerable hardships and has done some amazing journalism. My thoughts were reflecting more on the elements of the emergent American zeitgeist this article may willingly or unwillingly reflect as a piece in our media. My comment was responding also to the 12 pages of commenters. To answer your question I actually speak some Japanese - but anyway, since when are Asian-Americans not Americans?
While I have little patience, I still have some (sure, it needs loads of work, but I can admit that). However, priveledge and comfort can often be disguised as patience. Given that few of us are buddhas, I'd prefer the fiery lot that struggles with patience, than those luckily "allotted" it. One can sit by patiently accepting the world without struggle while the puff-liberals debate the ending of the Sopranos or the overhyping of Sgt. Pepper. I'd prefer to struggle with patience - and even inadvertantly come off as an ignorant asshole on an internet forum - while maintaining a sense of justice and actually doing something about these things in my daily life.
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More sand than expected in the ol' Hourglass
Middle-age? At 43 I have now, officially outlived both of my parents. Their lives were shortened by a variety of illnesses, both genetic and self-inflicted (smoking, drinking etc.) Watching my father slowly, painfully die when I was in my early teens, and then my mother go through the same thing before I turned 22, I figured that right then, at my mother's funeral, I was probably already at (or perhaps past) my own middle-age. I didn't expect to see 42... Most days I still don't expect I'll see 50...but an odd thing has happened - in spite of the elevated cholestrol, and about 40 extra pounds, I remain healthier than I ever expected I would.
Yes, I got reading glasses last year. Yes my hair is migrating from my head, and yes, I'm having trouble remembering which Clash songs were on which Clash albums... but I DO find myself asking a new question: What on earth am I going to do if, by some mad chance, I DO manage to live to 75+ ...and would I even want to? I don't have an answer yet, but if you'll excuse me, I have to go do some cardio.
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Shot kness
Well done!
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Deathful, not deathless
Tolkien called it the Gift of Men - death. Gary Kamiya received that gift at 53, but it was there for him along. Each day could be our last, or that of our friends, families, enemies. Mortality means that we have to choose, and try to choose well. We have to create an identity for our selves that takes death and dying and aging into account. This is the beauty of the third of Hillel's questions ("If I am not for myself, who is for me? and when I am for myself, what am I? and if not now, when?") Mortality means that we cannot go on forever denying that which cannot be denied, whatever it is that is deep down inside for us. We need to look and see who we are, and why, and once we know, we must act, for this is all the time we have.