I wrote a comment then deleted it because I hate me too comments, but I putting this back. It is all the things you said and I found it very touching. Last time I talked to my Dad a couple of weeks ago, he told me he's tired. I'm going to call him tonight to see how he's doing.
I can't imagine having the kind of talent to put words together as Mr. Hall has. Thanks, quickfox, for posting this.
That sentence and the whole paragraph it punctuated are so profoundly beautiful. I want to write more, but brevity in this case, says more than I ever could...
If the mind and body remain strong, I wonder if the atrophy of ambition is just due to a waning sense of purpose? At 96 my grandfather was still driving his van solo every summer from Michigan to the central highlands of Mexico to help my father on his farm. He stopped at 97 after getting a viral infection that sent him back to Michigan to recover. My father and his family went up to take care of him, but he slowly decline and then died just one week shy of 100.
I'm now 62 and I can already feel my sense of purpose waning. I realize now that I'm not going to change the world. My wife died last year and now I can see that whatever I achieve now it will all be forgotten in a few short decades. Sometimes I think "why bother doing anything?". Mostly I keep busy with things that I had no time to do until I retired at the beginning of this year. But, it has to be said that some of these things are just finishing projects that have long been on hold and that I want to finish just for the satisfaction of having completed them.
Sorry, rambling. Intimations of mortality have that effect on me sometimes.
Ha, I finished reading this and thought, "reminds me of this poem I heard on This America Life". Turns out the poem in TAL is _also_ from Donald Hall [1]. I'll have to read Essays after 80 now.
You are missing a key apostrophe there, "'", which grammatically means that ambition belongs to fulfillment.
The author is saying that as he ages, the fulfillment he once felt by being ambitious (e.g. writing books, starting a company, learning new things) goes away.
Does that make sense?
I think it's important to keep in mind that this isn't a "factual" piece as much as it is his reflection on aging. It might be true to him but not true to others.
Ambitious people set high goals for themselves. High goals usually take time and energy to achieve. When you're old, you are on short supply of both, and so a person ambitious in their youth can no longer afford to be as such at say 85. You've only got so much time left, it's not worth it to be a prospector.
The author likens this state of affairs to that of an aging athlete who can no longer play the sport they loved playing in their youth. For an ambitious person, settling for a slower pace can be a difficult transition.
Unlike the others, I took it to mean the loss, the gap in one’s life, after their ambitions are fulfilled. If one has led an ambitious, successful life, their early life is filled with problems and purpose. Later years have lost that purpose, even, and perhaps especially, if you’ve been successful.
> Anyone ambitious who lives to be old or even _old_ endures the inevitable loss of ambition’s fulfillment.
I needed the whole sentence to parse that phrase. Here is what I understood: Ambitious persons who live to be old will struggle with the realization that although they remain ambitious (a certain type of stretching into the future this characteristic of _youth_), they lose the ability (energy, focus, commitment) to fulfil those ambitions. Matching those two conditions found inside one's self as the reality of one's self is a terrible struggle and out of that follows an inevitable sense of loss.
"When I was eighty, still doing frequent poetry readings, audiences stood and clapped when I concluded, and kept on clapping until I shushed them. Of course I stayed to sign book after book and returned to my hotel understanding that they applauded so much because they would never see me again."
Brings to mind Mary Oliver[0]
"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
"An athlete goes professional at twenty. At thirty, he is slower but more canny. At forty, he leaves behind the identity that he was born to and that sustained him. He diminishes into fifty, sixty, seventy. Anyone ambitious who lives to be old or even old endures the inevitable loss of ambition’s fulfillment."
I'm not sure I struggle with the loss of ambition's fulfillment. Maybe that will come after where I'm at now. But the ambitions of my teens, 20s, and 30s seem pretty dumb, in retrospect.
I definitely struggle with the fact that it takes time to do things, and time is shorter than it used to be, and so I should probably prioritize and focus. But I know that kind of psychological railroading is not all-around good for me, personally. I used to be so focused that it sucked the fun out. So I continue starting all kinds of branches that will still look new when I'm dead. I have zero problems with the energy I get from these little departures and enjoy watching the new branches form.
[+] [-] somberi|7 years ago|reply
" I remember my mother toward the end,
folding the tablecloth after dinner
so carefully,
as if it were the flag
of a country that no longer existed,
but once had ruled the world. "
- Jim Moore
Edit - Typo.
[+] [-] HenryTheHorse|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpmoyn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|7 years ago|reply
I can't imagine having the kind of talent to put words together as Mr. Hall has. Thanks, quickfox, for posting this.
[+] [-] teemo91|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|7 years ago|reply
That happens with older writers. Generally, the farther back you read, there's less and less of it.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ayushgta|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JustMatthew|7 years ago|reply
That sentence and the whole paragraph it punctuated are so profoundly beautiful. I want to write more, but brevity in this case, says more than I ever could...
[+] [-] epberry|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaiwen1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwhitefoot|7 years ago|reply
Sorry, rambling. Intimations of mortality have that effect on me sometimes.
[+] [-] emmanueloga_|7 years ago|reply
1: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/651/if-you-build-it-will-th...
[+] [-] aceshades|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoshMandel|7 years ago|reply
1. It is no longer fulfilling to be ambitious (i.e., a quiet home-centric, narrowing life can be fulfillment enough)
2. Ambitions are no longer fulfilled (i.e., there's not enough energy or time in the day to meet ambitious goals)
[+] [-] syndacks|7 years ago|reply
You are missing a key apostrophe there, "'", which grammatically means that ambition belongs to fulfillment.
The author is saying that as he ages, the fulfillment he once felt by being ambitious (e.g. writing books, starting a company, learning new things) goes away.
Does that make sense?
I think it's important to keep in mind that this isn't a "factual" piece as much as it is his reflection on aging. It might be true to him but not true to others.
[+] [-] ModernMech|7 years ago|reply
The author likens this state of affairs to that of an aging athlete who can no longer play the sport they loved playing in their youth. For an ambitious person, settling for a slower pace can be a difficult transition.
[+] [-] JHonaker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncarroll|7 years ago|reply
I needed the whole sentence to parse that phrase. Here is what I understood: Ambitious persons who live to be old will struggle with the realization that although they remain ambitious (a certain type of stretching into the future this characteristic of _youth_), they lose the ability (energy, focus, commitment) to fulfil those ambitions. Matching those two conditions found inside one's self as the reality of one's self is a terrible struggle and out of that follows an inevitable sense of loss.
[+] [-] benrhughes|7 years ago|reply
Or, put otherwise, the further you are in time from an achievement, the less fulfilling it is.
[+] [-] virtualwhys|7 years ago|reply
Brings to mind Mary Oliver[0]
"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
[0] http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html
[+] [-] diN0bot|7 years ago|reply
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
[+] [-] copperx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmorris|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themodelplumber|7 years ago|reply
I definitely struggle with the fact that it takes time to do things, and time is shorter than it used to be, and so I should probably prioritize and focus. But I know that kind of psychological railroading is not all-around good for me, personally. I used to be so focused that it sucked the fun out. So I continue starting all kinds of branches that will still look new when I'm dead. I have zero problems with the energy I get from these little departures and enjoy watching the new branches form.