The Incredible Shrinking World

As you read about aging and dying, you can't get too far before you start to hear about the way people's worlds seem to shrink as they get older. I've read more than a few laments about how a parent who was once this outward looking person, constantly engaged with the travel, community, politics or whatever, winds up sitting on the couch watching the weather channel with little or no interest in any of the things that used to fascinate them.

I'm starting to think this dynamic has less to do with how far you've moved from the starting line than it does how close you feel yourself to be to the end. This is to say, I'm finding it harder and harder to give a crap.

There was a time when a speeding ticket would've really bugged me. I'd be worried about my insurance rates and the other downstream implications, but at the point it doesn't matter at all. 

There was a time when the idea of a (Jeb) Bush v. (Hillary) Clinton election would've driven me crazy. But at this point, if America wants to permanently install the two families in the White House on a rotational basis, why should I care? I won't be here to pay the price (or reap the benefits).

I used to love movie trailers, and see hundreds of movies a year. Now I can barely be bothered to look up what's currently playing. 

I don't think I'll fall over dead anytime soon, truly, but I am finding it harder and harder to convince myself I'll see fifty. And the less convincing I become on that particular point, the harder it is to maintain the belief that things that "matter" do, in fact, matter. And so the world keeps shrinking as I jettison my interest in the things I can't persuade myself to keep caring about.* The weird thing is that while I can objectively recognize that my world is getting significantly smaller, it still feels way too big. 

Good thing I've got the next leg of the GCW Tour coming up. Nothing like travelling to a place where you don't understand the language and don't recognize the food to help remind you that the world's actually a much bigger place than we generally think it to be. 


* I have this vague recollection of reading about animals who, when the fight or flight instinct kicks in, basically evacuate from every orifice to shed all unnecessary weight as they move to escape. It's starting to feel that dying might be like that. We shed all our crap -- mental and physical -- to lighten the load as we move to escape.