Before the great philosopher Cicero died, he wrote that old age has such great authority that it is more valuable than all the pleasures of youth. That was a long time ago. Old age has lost almost all of its authority in our culture, which worships money and youth as one.
In our time, the technical world has moved swiftly and unfathomably by me; people over thirty now have trouble getting funding to make movies; they are deemed out of touch, which is true. Game ideology is one of the most significant cultures in our world; few people over 40 even know what it is.
As Cicero learned, the greatest fear of getting older is not death or murder but almost certain obsoleteness, or what corporations call “planned obsolescence.” The world of older people is turned upside down; the definition of “old” gets younger, and the idea of obsoleteness gets closer. Older people were once revered in cultures like ours. Now, they are invisible and pushed out of sight.
I was never a great fan of Joe Biden, but I have seen that his biggest crime to the nation was getting old in full view of a society that moves so quickly that only the young can understand it.
The contempt shown for him almost seems like ageism, something he never seemed willing or able to grasp. A critical lesson for the elderly in our culture is to know when to get lost before someone does it for you.
Biden would have seen it if he was as spiritual as he claimed. Too much ego can be dangerous for the elderly.
Biden never understood the meaning or symbolism of Joe Regan or TikTok, and Donald Trump couldn’t wait to get on it and save it. That was important.
Modern society is a powerful machine that spins leaders through a revolving door of defined term limits and essential new technology and moves on. The Elon Musks of the world are like shooting stars and meteors, crashing into our consciousness and space and fading out of influence, burning themselves out and leaving smoldering ideas along the way.
He is a meal few people can digest for too long. He doesn’t get it either.
And here we are, the Galla flower has mesmerized people worldwide for a century or more. Can Musk, Rogan, or Trump or Crime Junkie do that? Biden sure couldn’t.
Nothing in the tech world, or a tech world or podcast blog, can compare to spirituality or a beautiful flower in terms of relevance. The same applies to a love of silence and a chance to meditate. That’s relevant.
That’s where I’ve gone and am going. I need to make myself relevant, not expect a job or politician to do it.
This afternoon, I was a happy man as I prepared this floral list, which is my daily passion. Come Along.
The system doesn’t run solely on money and youth; it also runs on the fickle idea of relevance, the brutal equalizer of our culture. No one lasts too long; our DA no longer allows it. In the long run, billionaires are no better than the rest of us.
Our corporate culture cannot afford old age, and older people can no longer grasp what pushes them to irrelevance. Biden fell apart before he realized he had no real place in society.
Whether you like him or not, I can almost guarantee Trump will suffer the same fate. It’s not that his people won’t love him; it’s just that their attention spans cannot stay on him for too long.
I have found a way for me to be relevant. I’m no good at disappearing.
I’ve left politics, etc., behind and am pursuing an ageless need and philosophy – spirituality.
Take flowers, for example. Will they ever stop being beautiful? Will AI ever be something we grow and nurture in our years? Will TikTok and Substack and Crime Junkie ever be something we can smell, look at, and sit within us as we finally have the time to understand who we are? Will Joe Regan experience every touch of people in the way nature, flowers, color, and beauty do? I don’t know, and I won’t say.
Obsolescence has been good for me. It has pushed me in a new direction and triggered my search for a spiritual life that will never be obsolete and will not diminish my relevance to the world. When all is said and done, spirituality is all about what I think of myself, not what others think of me.
