a.k.a. V.J.

There is a ubiquitous meme floating around social media that makes fun of the ridiculous extent to which characters getting stuck quicksand was used as plot device in old movies and TV shows. Here is one of the many variations:

On a similar note, anybody who grew up listening to rock ‘n roll could say that “fading away” was routinely presented to us as a much bigger problem than it really is. Back at the dawn of the genre, Buddy Holly had a hit song called “Not Fade Away.” In “Bell Bottom Blues,” Eric Clapton wailed, “I don’t want to fade away!” Neil Young penned the lyric “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” which was later echoed by Def Leppard and then again in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. To my knowledge, none of those artists explained what they meant by “fading away,” but they seemed to believe it was a pitiful way to end up.

The past few years, I’ve felt like I’m fading away, in a sense. I don’t say that in a depressed or desperate-cry-for-help way. On the contrary, I’ve come to accept that a gradual fade into the background is natural and desirable at my age. Or, to quote another well-worn internet meme, “This is fine.”

When I use the term “gradual fade into the background,” it’s the idea that, as a parent of adult children, I feel like I’ve passed the baton and my place in the world has shifted. I haven’t disappeared or become less important, but I’ve stepped back a little to give the next generation some room. Anyone who has parented a teen or a young adult has experienced those moments when, no matter how much it hurts, you just have to let them make their own mistakes and learn from experience. That’s how I feel about the world at large these days.

Not that the world cares how I feel about it. I remain a product of a particular moment in time in a particular range of places, but the world moves on. My tastes, values, and priorities are not the tastes, values, and priorities of the majority. The cultural touchstones that were so important to me growing up no longer resonate with a lot of people. People and places that used to be part of my life are gone now or have evolved into something barely recognizable. My generation had its time to make its mark and establish its legacy and now, for good or ill, we are basically in the denouement phase. It would be easy to get bitter about those realities, and I think a lot of people my age do just that. But as Thanos reminded us, “Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same.”

Marcus Aurelius expressed the idea a bit less ominously in Meditations:

That in a short while, you will be nobody and nowhere; and the same of all that you now see and all who are now alive. It is in the nature of all things to change, to perish, and be transformed, so that in succession different things can come to be.

To those who are willing to embrace this dynamic, there are benefits. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have the time and space to live in the moment, instead of fretting about the future. It is a relief to not feel the need to express — or even have — an opinion about every little issue (a major plus in this age of shrill, toxic, and inane culture wars). I’m living more simply, continuously pruning out bits of the mental and emotional clutter I carried around in my younger years. My slow-fade lifestyle might be lame by rock ‘n roll standards, but it’s been keeping me out of the quicksand, so I’m sticking with it.