Cycles

Life is lived in cycles, at least mine is.
Looking back at all the collected memorabilia and minutia of a packed life, I realize that there have been cycles. (“Dan has always had difficulty in abiding by a clock or a calendar,” my mother wrote in April 1982. “He tries and often does jam 48 hours in 24.”) Cycles of activism, cycles of detachment. Relationships that grow into marriages—2 formal, one de-facto—and work stints that last for years on end—seven years at WBCN, ten in commercial TV, and another ten plus at Globalvision. Working like a banshee. Thinking that if only I pushed harder, it would make a difference. Some experience me as obsessive, a workaholic.
Looking back at all of this now is bringing closure, a sayonara to my old life, the first half century, hoping there’s a new phase in the offing.
But after catharsis, what?
Not knowing is driving me crazy, pushing me into bouts of depression, whining, uncertainty. I keep asking myself “what am I going to do with my life?” even as I am doing it. There is no sign in the skies. My body is changing, rounding. Hair falling away in small bits. Testosterone fading. I am hesitant about the Viagra option but have, I will admit, dicked with it. People tell me I don’t look my age but sometimes I sure feel it. At 56, I am four years older than the President. I work with kids half my age. I am not exercising. I am stressing. People experience me as detached, self-absorbed. Nothing new there. I feel passive, batteries way down, tired, strained.
Apocalyptic theories tend to surface at the dawn of new millenium. Change is a constant. Look back and see how agrarianism begat industrialization, how we went from goods to services, the age of discovery, age of capital formation, and, now, the information age. More information and fewer informed people, more data and less wisdom.
What’s next?
I feel like I see everything; I know nothing. I want to be happy; I am not. I want to be rich. I am not. I want the world to change. It hasn’t. I complain about television. It gets worse. But, hey, I am still doing it.
Years ago, when Sid Caesar ruled the airwaves, he had a feature called “The Answer Man.” The shtick stuck with me all these years. An Answer: Hans was thrown out of the Luftwaffe. The Question? What happened to Hans after he shot down several Messerschmidts? I know its age-bound humor, but you get the idea. Back then, at least some folks thought there were answers. Today, all we have seems to be questions.
And I have more than my share.