Autumn Of Life

“Be ready when opportunity comes… Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet. ” (Roy D. Chapin Jr). Some tears could drop down my face after I read this quote of the day in this very same blog but a man should never cry. I’m saying this because I don’t recall to have had the opportunity, don’t recall to have had the luck and I’m afraid preparation and opportunity have never met before.

I don’t have to agree with this quote just because it was said by a celebrity (if Roy D. Chapin Jr was a celebrity) but I don’t agree with him because luck is definitely just… luck!! If one day luck will not be only luck then luck will no longer be luck and will be something else. At least that is what one expects luck to be, what one expects to happen in one’s life. Even those who have oriented their lives based on pragmatism or mathematical concepts always expect their moment (or moments) of pure luck.

“Autumn Of Life” is a title far away from being originated by depressing thoughts. Living the 40′s it’s all the best in life as much as it can be for 20′s, 30′s and so on… But 40′s has got a special taste: it’s the mid-age and because of that it’s the inversion point of a man’s life. Can you imagine the amount of energy necessary to invert a moving object? You can, if you have reached already the 40′s. And if you have, then you might have already thought that life without a bit of luck or, preferrably lots of it, might not be that nice and sometimes might become somewhat depressing. Life with bad luck can be tragic but life without luck doesn’t bring you happiness. Therefore, I’m not able to meet happiness. I mean, the part of happiness that happens when you meet luck because there’s many other parts of happiness depending on other meetings. In other words, happiness can’t be total if you have not yet met luck. And I haven’t met it till I’ve reached my autumn of life and even since then.

Autumn Of Life refers to the time during what many things really start falling. The power of gravity it’s amazing but I’m not really referring to the falls of our body when we reach the mid-age (that’s much more critical in mid-age women). Getting bald or wrinkled skin it’s very little when compared to other characteristics in your existence after you reach 40′s. Shape doesn’t matter, color does. Autumn is also gray. Grays happen (like shit happens), just don’t let them take over.

I hate poetry, I’ve never read it before and I’m afraid I will never do it but today I feel like fustigating myself for not having met luck yet by including here a poem about the Autumn Of Life. And nothing better than close your eyes, surf the internet, copy the very first poem you find there and paste it.

October’s tang fills the morning air,
And chainsaws whine across the glade.
Growing heaps of fresh-cut blackjack
That were yesterday’s enticing shade.

The deep, dark green of field and woodland,
(Save for a cedar here and there)
Take on autumn’s riotous colors,
While cob webs twine like witches’ hair.

Wild ducks flying ever southward,
And geese are honking everywhere.
These are certain signs of autumn,
the sober, thoughtful time of year.

Beauties of nature, God’s own display,
Frost jewels gleaming where once there was dew,
Lends a gentle hint, a warning
Summer is over for me too.

Many summers have I witnessed,
Seen their beauties come and fade.
Seen the chilly blast of winter
Spread white blankets o’er the glade.

The spring of youth has long departed;
The summer of life is nearing its end.
I am entering the beautiful Autumn
That climaxes life for fortunate men.

Wintery blasts soon will be blowing.
Autumn’s beauties will all fade.
Thick white blankets will be drifting
O’er the footprints I have made.

Then again will come the springtime.
Again the trees will cast their shade.
Those of us that are in our autumn
Will be sleeping in the glade.

by Charles E. Myers

Like it? I don’t, mainly because I didn’t understand it which increases quite a lot my self-fustigation. Fortunately I do believe in self-purification by self-fustigation and this is it, my moment of supreme contemplation over life, my own life, and a bit of cheap philosophy in between of a stupid life taking place among big black and round “donuts”.

Hugs for the boys, kisses for the girls from a nice grizzly man somewhere in the middle of a jungle.