Am I Black Pilled?
No. But I'm gradually becoming "black blanketed." I find as I get older, the world gets darker. Not because of any cliched "end times" scenario I imagine, but because all things lose their luster after a while. It's as if someone has thrown a dark blanket over your worldview.
The concept of "experience" is a great thing when you're in your thirties. It helps you along. But by the time you hit your late forties and early fifties, it can start grinding you down.
The novelty of a cute girl or a great movie doesn't seem so novel anymore. It seems like a cliche you've experienced too many times. People become predictable and therefore less interesting. Where it was once "Hey -- hippie dude!" It becomes "Oh no, not another pretend hippie."
You can already guess what people are about when you meet them, because chances are you've met a "version" of them before: The career shrike, the Earth Mother, the Company Man, the Stoner, the White Knight, and the Pseudo Intellectual -- which is what I probably became.
The Internet has helped this along. Because we're communicating in written form, we can be precise and nuanced. Speech seems blunt and primitive by comparison and therefore people seem more one-dimensional.
One of the unconscious benefits of youth is that when most people are older than you are, you assume those people are somewhat competent and have acquired a certain wisdom that comes with age. But as you actually age, you start to realize most people your age never really gained much wisdom or insight. They're the same screw-ups you knew in middle school, only fatter and balder.
As such, relationships between people change. You no longer pile into the car with your friends and act wild. Everybody's too reserved. Everybody has something to lose. Everyone is on guard to a much greater degree.
Another weird thing is that the years themselves become blurred in your memory and more monochromatic. In my twenties and thirties, each year had a distinct personality and feel, and I could remember all of them with specific visual pictures in my head. But when those years start piling up after about age forty, they become faceless and start to blend into one another. So even your memories start to become dull.
And so, as time goes on, you feel less and less like traveling, meeting new people, or even dating. A general feeling of disgust and inertia begins to creep in, like life is a song you've heard too many times. It's hard to shake the feeling once you've experienced this.
I get why old people are miserable. Beyond the aches and pains, the world doesn't seem like the same place it was when you were young. It feels like a ghost town, or an empty shopping mall during a recession. Trying to change also feels like going through the motions, since chances are you did that before.
So, a gradual darkening of the senses sets in. Maybe this would not have happened to me if I hadn't gotten divorced and/or Red Pilled. But maybe it would have and I wouldn't have understood it while being in a Blue Pill cocoon.
Hence, my new term "The Black Blanket," which is a bit too awkward to coin as a phrase, but it's all I can come up with tonight.
This post by Days of Broken Arrows actually put dread in my gut, it scared me, which is a testament to how well he can communicate through writing I suppose. I've finally got a lifetimes worth of depression symptoms under control and am ready to live, and this post smacked me in the face as if to say "too late sucker".
I've been thinking about it for a few days and wanted to write a response. I'll try, unfortunately he's quite right for a large percentage of mid-life to older men. The bitter old man is a stereotype for a reason.
And so, as time goes on, you feel less and less like traveling, meeting new people, or even dating. A general feeling of disgust and inertia begins to creep in, like life is a song you've heard too many times. It's hard to shake the feeling once you've experienced this.
In college I attended a class which showed the movie "Wild Strawberries" by Ingmar Bergman, it's a brilliant film about a grouchy old professor reminiscing over his past. A lot of what DOBA posted about is covered in this movie if I remember correctly. It's considered to be "one of the greatest films ever made" -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Strawberries_(film) - so if you're into film, there you go.
I thought about who I know who are not bitter and disillusioned with life who are in their 50's and 60's. Two people came to mind and they are both musicians. Them being musicians is kind of important because their locus of control is largely internal, they are creative, and their meaning in life is generated from within. Of course they still need relationships and other things from the external world, but they don't rely entirely on the world for their meaning in life. What DOBA speaks about is travel, meeting people, experiencing the world, and how that becomes kind of meaningless over time because of the "Been There, Done That" factor, which my musician friend has said about having kids, dating lots of women, travelling, etc. He still lives a rich life however, he creates, he's always created, and it has been a constant for the 30 years I've known him, and it still gives him joy ( obviously ). An elite drummer named Virgil Donati who is 60 something spoke about getting up and looking forward to ideas he wants to try out, in fact I found the video where he talks about this. Hearing it from Virgil himself is more impressive than my writing about it, just watch 48 seconds to 2:09, listen to him talk about mental strength and how he pushes away negative thoughts and how he's excited to start the day. This is not a bitter man who has mostly given up.
Impressive. So to summarize, both Virgil Donati and my friend are musicians, who create, who have 'ideas' that they want to try, and age, and experience of the world does not effect this process because they are not looking for a result from the world, they want to express their ideas, and it is the realization of the idea that gives them meaning and joy.
A couple of other things. Health, my friend doesn't smoke, drink or do drugs. He does yoga, is a vegetarian and runs a lot, he's 57 and looks fantastic. After 40 years of age, you simply have to have some sort of exercise regimen, cardio 3 times a week. This is a must, it keeps your brain and senses sharp.
Finally, and this is a difficult one, mental health. You know how when you eat your body draws nutrients from the food and then expels the rest? Well this seems like a good-enough metaphor for experience, you have an experience like marriage, and if it ends in divorce then hopefully, you expel the residual negative emotion through grieving properly. This is where I believe women have a massive advantage over men, women, while still feeling the pain of experiences seem to be able to process them in a superior manner to men. They cry, they let it out. Men however seem to not be able to do this, and now the weight of experience starts to gather in their souls, so by the time they are 60 they are walking around like they have a piano on their back. In order to be creative, especially being creative, because you are generating from within, you can't have residue from worldly experience clogging up your soul. Solving this is very difficult, in the west we are not encouraged to go 'within' to clear out toxic emotion, which would free us up to feel more alive. Instead we are given prescriptions, or drink, or just shut down. This is kind of tragic. In other cultures the Priests of the culture have ceremonies, and these ceremonies I believe are used for just this purpose, to clear out the toxins left over from experience. Everyone has scar tissue, but if it's seriously preventing you from living a creative life, then I think your soul purpose should be to deal with those injuries, otherwise you will end-up living a very constricted life.
So, it is possible to not end up a bitter old person in my opinion, I see examples of people who are not like this, but their meaning derived from life is largely generated from within and not dependent on an external source.
