I’ve never really been a big fan of poetry. I’ve tried to be but it’s not happened. I even have a section of this retirement blog dedicated to poetry but, as you might see, that section has but one offering and that many years ago. I had a friend who wrote poetry and I had this vague idea that he might make a regular poetical offering about retirement. I liked what he wrote that first (and only) time, but the effort seemed to exhaust him and he never wrote another one. Shame.
I do have some favourite poems however and one of those is the famous Dylan Thomas offering which has the immortal lines Do not go gentle into that good night and rage, rage against the dying of the light. I’ve always liked it and as evidence I offer the painting above way back from my art college days in the 60s, would you believe, of the man himself. A good excuse for me to take a photo of this painting which hangs on our walls at home.
If I liked it way back when it has become almost a mantra now I’m retired and even more so as old age not only beckons but shouts in my ear. It’s almost a piece of advice that all ‘old people’ should follow. True I’ve written elsewhere in these offerings about how I am less and less inclined to give advice in the way I used to in the early days of this blog. I had a friend, a fellow psychologist, whose advice to me was, never give advice. Hmm, shows what he knew.
Anyway probably the one reason he cautioned against the giving of advice was that it frequently turned out to be wrong. And so it is with the ‘raging against the dying of the light’. I have increasingly come to the conclusion that this advice needs to be qualified although maybe not totally ignored. Witness the fact that only quite recently I wrote a blog ‘to have and to hold’ which suggested, not advised mind you, to let go of things you could no longer do without regret. In fact rather to be pleased that you had ever done them. So, to take pleasure in past achievements but not be pissed off that you could no longer do them.
Therefore somewhere between these two extremes – of pushing yourself to be the man or woman you used to be and the other option of simply giving up, lying on the sofa, pouring another glass of wine or the beverage of your choice – lies the best way of living out your retirement ‘old age’.
As is typically the case with this blog and its current non-advice giving status the answer is, it’s all to do with balance. Duh. Which roughly translates into, fight for the things that are worth keeping (although bear in mind the negative effect on your blood pressure – not to be messed with at our age – of raging) and let go of those aspects of your life that are simply more trouble than they are worth. All you have to do is decide which activities go in which column. Simple enough surely?
Well, no. Let me say straight off this is not easy for me, but might look like – physical activities such as country or even city walks, DIY tasks – house painting, car-washing, furniture making, anything which requires a steady hand other than raising a glass or two of wine where I use both hands, ‘heavy’ vineyard tasks. You get the idea and if you don’t well then my advice is …