Growing old disgracefully and proud of it

THE funny thing about Friesian cows standing in a field is that they all seem to look in one direction, either to the right or left. Whether there is an obvious reason for this, I do not know but maybe that is where the term "herd mentality" comes in. It takes one brave cow to look the other way.

This draws a parallel in humans. Large numbers of people act in the same way at the same time and this implies a fear-based reaction to peer pressure, which makes individuals act in order to avoid feeling "left behind" from the group. It is also the fear that tongues will wag and doing something differently is certainly "not the done thing". I was born in a small town and boy, did people talk. Private business was public business and not surprisingly uncommon behaviour was great fodder for gossip. That is why most people possibly avoided doing things differently and therefore imposed upon themselves what William Blake would call "manacles of the mind". Then, I moved to the city where people still talked but we were too busy eking out a living and minding children to bother with what they were talking about. Now, I am back to living in a small town and even though we have progressed into the new millennium, strangely some things do not change.

There was once when I was wearing this lovely pair of canvas shoes with cartoons on them that were hand-painted by my former student. The moment I walked into the petrol kiosk to get a cup of coffee, I saw a group of school girls and they started whispering. Through years of experience of observing non-verbal communication, I could tell that they were aghast that a grown woman had cartoons on her shoes. Certainly very eccentric indeed. An interesting read is Growing Old Disgracefully by Rohan Canduppa where she quips that the expected behaviour of a grandma is to have a kindly face. She must knit and wear cardigans and be mildly shocked at young people's antics. Most of all, she must never have sex or even think about it. So, it is absolutely delightful to read Jenny Joseph's poem Warning, where the first few lines say, "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.... I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth..." This reminds me of the time when I wanted to buy an ice cream cone. The accepted code of ice cream eating behaviour is to purchase one with or without a flake in it. So when we passed a shop that sold ice cream cones, my better half asked me whether I wanted one. I said, yes and could I have two flakes in it? Shocked, he said, "This is not the done thing." So we drove by the shop without buying any. Then, we passed by another shop. I asked him to please pull the car over. I went into the second shop and bought myself a cone with two flakes.

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to be difficult and purposefully trying to be a social menace. I certainly do not condone vile acts of treason or looting or being selfish and disrespectful. Having said that, sometimes I can tolerate meaningless chatter and bad language and being bored stiff in a pub watching others share their private jokes and down liquor for the sake of "blending" in if there is good reason to do so. But I do believe in standing by your principles, knowing that you will not put up with what you are not comfortable with. Most of all, I like doing things creatively -- that has always been the plumb line for my actions. If that exhibits a lust for life and liberates the mind and soul, why not? Just the other day, we passed by another shop selling ice cream cones. This time, my better half asked, "Now do you want three flakes even?" Source: http://www.nst.com.my/mobile/opinion/columnist/growing-old-disgracefully-and-proud-of-it-1.107569