Youth exists only so that it can be destroyed. Whew. This was a fascinating read. I wish younger me could have read it, say, every 10 years. I hope older me will do so.
Exquisite writing. Thank you. I just celebrated the milestone 70th birthday, causing this to resonate loudly within me. Although I loved the entire post, there were a couple of lines that stopped me in my tracks. "What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived?" "...you retain in old age a keen awareness of the decades stretched out before you, and you desire, with a bewildered sort of desperation, to make them count for something."
At 79, definitely struggling to fill that void. I always felt my wife and I would have these so called golden years together and in typical fashion, I would be the first to die. Thus, we would have each other to fill at least some of that void. But that was not to be. She was diagnosed with FTD, a rare form of dementia, 13 years ago and died 2 years ago, leaving me alone to fill that void. It has been a struggle
As deep and wise and painful and brilliant as anything you've composed that I've had the honour of reading, dear son. If the meaning of life was a question, you have come as close to an answer as is humanly possible.
Hey man this was awesome. I loved it! I am 43 and have been really grieving the loss of my youth. None of my parents or grandparents or aunts or uncles ever did anything but laugh about getting older, at least in my presence. It was well understood I think. They were all tough old Irish peasants. They never expected to stay young, or really seemed to want to. A sinful, self-indulgent wish they'd consider it, I am sure. They all grew old and grey and happy with their spouses. So cool.
I just had to dye my grey hair for the first time yesterday. For so long I left it untreated (even though it’s coming on prematurely) because I thought it motivated me to get my life together and make sure my dreams came true. Then I talked to someone in my Barre class about all the things I’ve done with my time and where I’ve traveled and it made me realize how lucky I’ve already been in my life. Life isn’t a line, with little dots marking our accomplishments. It’s a multifaceted beautiful thing filled with feelings, emotion, growth. And I’m not even the same person I was when I made some of those dreams. Shedding youth has been somewhat liberating because you lose the illusion of no limits. It forces you to focus on what’s important and make some tough choices. It’s been a challenging but gratifying process, especially growing up as a millennial and being told that you can accomplish anything you want to do. No, you can’t. And that’s part of what makes this human life beautiful, like a haiku.
For me, aesthetic reasons. From your pfp, it looks great on you. You look like you are/were a natural blonde. For me, my hair is black and my skin is brown and the greys weren’t evenly grey if that makes sense, some still have some pigment. I found it distracting to look at, and I’m much happier with them colored now. One less thing to think about each day, so I can focus on crushing these goals.
Mine was actually much darker before, like reddish brown. And it's even whiter now than in the pic, which is less than 2 years ago-ish. I was mostly saying that you don't "have" to but of course, doing what you want is awesome!
This should be required reading (and maybe even made into a short film) for all school-aged children so they get the concept of youth and not let that gift slip through their fingers. Thanks for writing this, Jared.
Well done! Such an evocative framework to consider the notion of ambition alongside the fact of diminishing returns. We will surely die unfinished. Then again, I like to think that the things we are working on in that moment we die will matter to those left behind. I also think that I'm going to miss myself when I am gone.
Thank you, Jared Young. When I turned 80 I took it in stride. No big deal. But when my sons turned 50 it hit me like a sledgehammer. They are both good men, the best. Nothing makes me happier.
Hey Jared, I can relate. I never thought I was destined for greatness or anything, but every so often, I’m struck by the realization that I won’t accomplish everything I once thought I would—and that the runway ahead is getting shorter and shorter. Updike, in his Rabbit novels, considered middle age to be 35?! I must be in my ‘golden years’ now, but I still feel—and more often than I should, act—like a youth!
what a beautiful gift this piece, on my 57th birthday no less...I am the same and I am so different. Art does not have to die as we age, I refer to this time as a winter garden, you think there is nothing to sow.. but in fact you find that is not the case.
And a couple of people clicked "Like" on them! And one person even wrote a nice comment.
He copied the comment out onto a sticky note and put it up on the timeline. After a few years the glue dried out and it fluttered to the floor behind the desk. But when he passed away they found it, and remembered his great "moment." His 15 seconds of fame.
This is phenomenally depressing. I was first published at 36 and now find myself on the brink of 44. My books have been nothing special, but they've been enjoyed by several thousand people, so I can take some solace from that. It seems there is a great deal of symmetry in most people's lives, provided we find ourselves on a more standard--dare I say average--trajectory. My Silence of the Lambs was The Matrix, and I watched it until my brain bled in vertical lines of animated code. So many possibilities and the idea that there was more to the world than we can see while bound by artificial restraints outside our control. I could have been anything. I chose this while I drifted along, half-asleep in the fever dream of youth. It's not a bad life. I, too, have a daughter and I've watched her grow into her own person. She became an 'adult' this year at the tender age of 18, and I can't help wondering when it was that I began to view that age as little more than a child instead of an autonomous human being with a life plan of their own that will eventually shatter. I imagine her kneeling at the edge of ruin and picking up the most treasured piece of those dreams that's still recognizable and molding it into her reality, perhaps fanning it into a flame of happiness that will sustain her and her children while I grow old and pass with the knowledge that she may never have read my books, but she probably told her children that her old man was a great author.
Thanks for the beautiful and heartfelt prose. To dare to be human is to have the courage to embrace the melancholy of our mortality. Perhaps there is a natural transition from attention to the breadth of life to later exploring its mysterious depths.
Youth exists only so that it can be destroyed. Whew. This was a fascinating read. I wish younger me could have read it, say, every 10 years. I hope older me will do so.
Exquisite writing. Thank you. I just celebrated the milestone 70th birthday, causing this to resonate loudly within me. Although I loved the entire post, there were a couple of lines that stopped me in my tracks. "What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived?" "...you retain in old age a keen awareness of the decades stretched out before you, and you desire, with a bewildered sort of desperation, to make them count for something."
At 79, definitely struggling to fill that void. I always felt my wife and I would have these so called golden years together and in typical fashion, I would be the first to die. Thus, we would have each other to fill at least some of that void. But that was not to be. She was diagnosed with FTD, a rare form of dementia, 13 years ago and died 2 years ago, leaving me alone to fill that void. It has been a struggle
Since you're still here, still writing, still pondering, tells me God has new chapters to write in your life.
💝🫶🏽🌈✨
Right with you, Karen
As deep and wise and painful and brilliant as anything you've composed that I've had the honour of reading, dear son. If the meaning of life was a question, you have come as close to an answer as is humanly possible.
Hey man this was awesome. I loved it! I am 43 and have been really grieving the loss of my youth. None of my parents or grandparents or aunts or uncles ever did anything but laugh about getting older, at least in my presence. It was well understood I think. They were all tough old Irish peasants. They never expected to stay young, or really seemed to want to. A sinful, self-indulgent wish they'd consider it, I am sure. They all grew old and grey and happy with their spouses. So cool.
I just had to dye my grey hair for the first time yesterday. For so long I left it untreated (even though it’s coming on prematurely) because I thought it motivated me to get my life together and make sure my dreams came true. Then I talked to someone in my Barre class about all the things I’ve done with my time and where I’ve traveled and it made me realize how lucky I’ve already been in my life. Life isn’t a line, with little dots marking our accomplishments. It’s a multifaceted beautiful thing filled with feelings, emotion, growth. And I’m not even the same person I was when I made some of those dreams. Shedding youth has been somewhat liberating because you lose the illusion of no limits. It forces you to focus on what’s important and make some tough choices. It’s been a challenging but gratifying process, especially growing up as a millennial and being told that you can accomplish anything you want to do. No, you can’t. And that’s part of what makes this human life beautiful, like a haiku.
who made you dye it? proudly naturally going white over here. It is literally who I am in this moment, so why try to pretend otherwise or hide it?
For me, aesthetic reasons. From your pfp, it looks great on you. You look like you are/were a natural blonde. For me, my hair is black and my skin is brown and the greys weren’t evenly grey if that makes sense, some still have some pigment. I found it distracting to look at, and I’m much happier with them colored now. One less thing to think about each day, so I can focus on crushing these goals.
Mine was actually much darker before, like reddish brown. And it's even whiter now than in the pic, which is less than 2 years ago-ish. I was mostly saying that you don't "have" to but of course, doing what you want is awesome!
I will be unapologetically blonde for the rest of my life, regardless of the judgement of the Embrace The Greys lot.
It’s graceful to keep your nose out of other people’s decisions about how they’d like to look.
But really, “who made you dye it?” Surely you were held at gunpoint, because who does that on their own?
Such fuckery. Dye with pride, my friend.
I stopped dying my hair and generally like it white but in online meetings with either a background or blur my hair disappears. Very annoying.
🙌🏽🫶🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👍🏽💝
This should be required reading (and maybe even made into a short film) for all school-aged children so they get the concept of youth and not let that gift slip through their fingers. Thanks for writing this, Jared.
Well done! Such an evocative framework to consider the notion of ambition alongside the fact of diminishing returns. We will surely die unfinished. Then again, I like to think that the things we are working on in that moment we die will matter to those left behind. I also think that I'm going to miss myself when I am gone.
Thank you, Jared Young. When I turned 80 I took it in stride. No big deal. But when my sons turned 50 it hit me like a sledgehammer. They are both good men, the best. Nothing makes me happier.
Hey Jared, I can relate. I never thought I was destined for greatness or anything, but every so often, I’m struck by the realization that I won’t accomplish everything I once thought I would—and that the runway ahead is getting shorter and shorter. Updike, in his Rabbit novels, considered middle age to be 35?! I must be in my ‘golden years’ now, but I still feel—and more often than I should, act—like a youth!
At 71, I see nothing but blue sky ahead.
Living my best life now!
Youth is wasted on the young...
Amen! Still the same at 82.
what a beautiful gift this piece, on my 57th birthday no less...I am the same and I am so different. Art does not have to die as we age, I refer to this time as a winter garden, you think there is nothing to sow.. but in fact you find that is not the case.
Beautifully written Jared. If it is any comfort at all, you seem very young to me! Keep writing.
But then he started a Substack.
And he wrote a short item or two.
And a couple of people clicked "Like" on them! And one person even wrote a nice comment.
He copied the comment out onto a sticky note and put it up on the timeline. After a few years the glue dried out and it fluttered to the floor behind the desk. But when he passed away they found it, and remembered his great "moment." His 15 seconds of fame.
Even after 86 years I'm still trying - there's always another day until there isn't
This is phenomenally depressing. I was first published at 36 and now find myself on the brink of 44. My books have been nothing special, but they've been enjoyed by several thousand people, so I can take some solace from that. It seems there is a great deal of symmetry in most people's lives, provided we find ourselves on a more standard--dare I say average--trajectory. My Silence of the Lambs was The Matrix, and I watched it until my brain bled in vertical lines of animated code. So many possibilities and the idea that there was more to the world than we can see while bound by artificial restraints outside our control. I could have been anything. I chose this while I drifted along, half-asleep in the fever dream of youth. It's not a bad life. I, too, have a daughter and I've watched her grow into her own person. She became an 'adult' this year at the tender age of 18, and I can't help wondering when it was that I began to view that age as little more than a child instead of an autonomous human being with a life plan of their own that will eventually shatter. I imagine her kneeling at the edge of ruin and picking up the most treasured piece of those dreams that's still recognizable and molding it into her reality, perhaps fanning it into a flame of happiness that will sustain her and her children while I grow old and pass with the knowledge that she may never have read my books, but she probably told her children that her old man was a great author.
Thanks for the beautiful and heartfelt prose. To dare to be human is to have the courage to embrace the melancholy of our mortality. Perhaps there is a natural transition from attention to the breadth of life to later exploring its mysterious depths.