“The days of our years are threescore many years and ten…. ” Many people have noticed that adage, which appears to imply a biblically mandated life expectancy of 70 yrs. But in fact there is more to Psalm 90: 10. This continues, “and in the event that by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sadness; for it is quickly cut off, and we take flight away. ”
Or, to seek advice from a more modern interpretation of the ancient Hebrew (the New Global Version): “Our times may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. ”
A rather ominous outlook for this writer, who happens to turn 70 today, Fri, August 12, 2022.
Still, if there is one thing I’ve learned during the past 3 score and ten, it’s that the long term is not knowable; indeed, neither is the previous fully, given imperfect memories and traditional records written by the particular winners of humanity’s many conflicts.
A life of privilege
The particular phrase in that subheading means different things in order to people, different lessons, different races, even different genders. In my case, it’s not the capitalist version of money, mansions and Mercedes Maybachs; I’ve proved helpful nearly without respite since I was seventeen, was 38 once i bought my 1st new car, and still live paycheck in order to paycheck.
No, in my case the privileges were being born inside a peaceful, wealthy nation (Canada) to loving parents, enjoying mainly good health, access to an excellent education in a bygone era when we members of the working class might get one without gathering mountains of debt, good friends, and exceptional opportunities to experience the marvels of our world.
Researching this article, We dug up 1 I wrote exactly five years ago upon my blog to mark my 65th birthday, including this passage:
“I’ve experienced the opportunity to see a few of the monuments to mankind’s cruelty and folly – Dachau, a Somosista dungeon, Alcatraz, the Colosseum, Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, the Berlin Walls, even Armageddon itself – but also to the best of humanity: the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations from Yad Vashem and the Statue of Liberty in New York, to name only two.
“I’ve had the opportunity to view the icons of a few of the world’s great religions – the Dome of the Rock, the particular Western Wall, the Holy Sepulcher, the particular Sistine Chapel, Angkor Wat and Borobodur – and excellent monuments to mankind’s quest to make its very own way beyond the particular guidance of historic scriptures: the parliaments in Westminster and Ottawa, to name only two….
“I’ve been inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, climbed the Eiffel Tower, stood on top of the World Trade Center. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa (she’s small), Michelangelo’s David (he’s big), Venus de Milo (she’s disarming – sorry, old joke), and the Phantom from the Opera. And basked in the beerful happiness of blues clubs in Bangkok and San Francisco. ”
But of course there are also many misgivings, laments over lost opportunities. One is the failure to learn more through my father about their experiences in the Royal Navy during Ww ii. He rarely talked of that time and am never pressed him on it. My mother was a little more forth-coming about surviving the particular London Blitz, however, I know few details.
Both of them have gone, she too young, he around the age I reach today.
It matters because like my parents, I am the pacifist. It’s a very easy philosophy just for someone like me who has rarely experienced violence; I was in a battleground only once, very quickly, in Nicaragua during the CIA-backed Contra fear, and was in no way in any real danger.
(The only time We heard a gunshot was when a tipsy Sandinista soldier ogling bikinis on a west-coast beach accidentally discharged his rifle; a doctor I was traveling with patched up the minor wound of the regrettable victim. )
But my father plus mother were for years in the midst of unimaginable assault that killed hundreds and hundreds of their countrymen and women. Yet mother and father were among the gentlest souls I have ever known; how can that be? A mystery, too late to be solved.
If this bleeds it potential clients
Eventually and largely by accident, We became a reporter, a trade that will lives off of violence and war. To be a pacifist in such a business is in a way the conflict of passions, yet our learning the art of “objectivity” offers a shield of sorts.
Still, during periods of hyped-up jingoism such as the current phase of blue-and-yellow flag-waving since the Russian intrusion of Ukraine, coinciding with apparently planned provocations in nuclear-armed China’s near abroad, the shield can be sorely tested.
So , will I have the opportunity to grapple with five more many years of trouble and sadness, to reach that four-score goal? The future is unknowable, and that is probably a good thing. Yet we can take comfort in the assurance which come what may, the only real true enemies are usually hate and violence, and that the best in our midst have shown that those enemies can be defeated, whenever we have the will.
David Simmons is a Canadian journalist based in Thailand. He has worked for papers and news sites in four nations, three of them within Asia. He holds a bachelor’s level in linguistics through the University of Uk Columbia and a diploma in journalism through Langara College in Vancouver.