Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
GAYS AND GENERATIONAL REPLACEMENT
#1
An old man, in whatever position he is in this world, must take note of an inevitable fact: the world goes on, and physiologically old generations give up and new ones take over, because this is the universal mechanism of human society and not only. It doesn’t matter how many steps one has climbed in the hierarchical or social or economic ladder, the rule applies to everyone without distinction, the ages of life proceed, old men gradually leave the productive system, with retirement, then slowly they are marginalized in the context of family organization, because the need to adapt to the changed context conditions involves the progressive exclusion of those who are not quick and efficient in the adaptation process.

Youth is an uphill path towards autonomy and development of one's potential, old age is a downward path towards the progressive loss of autonomy and the decline of one's abilities. This is the so-called parable of life. The acknowledgment of this mechanism that admits no exceptions implies the acceptance of decline and eventually even of death, but it can also lead to generational conflicts between elderly people attached to their role and new generations rising in the aforementioned parable of life. The movement is continuous: first you go up and then, inevitably, you go down. I don't even ask myself what the underlying meaning of all this is, because I would enter the metaphysics of ends, but I often ask myself what meaning can be given to the years of decline, that is, if, in some way, even old people are useful and I ask myself this in particular in relation to old gays, because an old gay, with rare exceptions, has no wife, has no children, does not have a genetic continuity to rely on or with which to come into conflict. There are gay couples, this is true, but my reflections will focus on the old gay singles who are still the vast majority today.

The problem of young people is "not to miss the train" that is not to miss the opportunities to step forward and improve their role, for old people this problem no longer exists because the train of life approaches the last station, in which all passengers anyway have to get off because the train is at the end of the race. With rare exceptions, old people are less competitive than young ones, are more renouncing and fatalistic, less inclined to face challenges and more interested in a quiet life without jolts and without further worries because little by little worries for their own health end up gradually taking up space in the horizon of old people.

The old man is used to the idea of being the guardian of the young guys, the counselor and the guide but he must gradually accept the idea that beyond the top of the parable of life the roles are exchanged and old people are gradually subjected to the protection of the most young people who advise and guide them in a world that is increasingly distant and alien to the old man. The old man is used to being the adult but he has to adapt to a new condition of minority and infantilization. The old man realizes that he is no longer treated like an adult, but that he is treated differently, with respect and attention similar to those used with children. The old man involved in an argument, cannot maintain his positions, he must give in at least a little at the beginning, and then gradually more and more, if he wants to be accepted and listened to again.

An old gay must realize that his experience is useless, because after 50 years the world has changed so much that his youth is now almost seen as part of a different geological or technological era. Saying "in my time" and starting to speak using the past time means that those times have really passed and that no one is interested in so old things anymore. Everything ages, even the experience and in particular the experience of homosexuality. In the space of 50 years the living conditions of gays have changed a lot and require new approaches and new interpretative schemes and, moreover, the speed of change taking place is such that old experiences are not only inappropriate but even misleading and counterproductive. In this sense, if an old man wants to serve something, he must first of all learn from young people things he doesn’t know or even imagine about today's world and must try, as less awkwardly as possible, to put himself in the shoes of a young person, not to pretend to be what he is no longer, but simply to understand the problems of a world of which he has no direct experience. The old man who confronts young people realizes that in order to understand something of a world that is no longer his own he must learn to detach himself from his personal experience, which is not easy because in general the individual experience is the basis of relational models of any person.
 
The old man must always keep in mind that he is old and that his time has passed, he must understand that, if he can ever have any role in the lives of others, it will still be the role of an old man. The low profile, listening, silence, being a complementary element, never the main one, keeping a weak voice, all things that can help not to end up in ridicule and are suitable for the old man. 
 
A gay old man can get along better with other non-gay old men than with gay young men. With the other old people he has in common the inexhaustible argument of old age, with the gay young people he could have in common the homosexuality argument, but often very different meanings are hidden behind the same word. What 50 years ago was a guarantee, a security, such as not being declared and keep staying in the closet, today ends up being considered a remora, something like a social handicap because the evaluation parameters have radically changed.
The same authors of literature who 50 years ago were loved by gays and considered the top of gay poetry and fiction, like Pasolini, are now characters whose names are barely known. Today there is the internet that, for better or for worse, has changed the perspectives of gays. Telling the gay guys of today about the life of gay guys of 50 years ago, in a world without internet and without mobile phones, almost means talking about the stone age, or of a world that not only no longer exists but even seems inconceivable.

Today things are possible that were not 50 years ago and of which the old man doesn’t have and cannot have the slightest experience, he may still feel gratified by the fact that what he himself could not achieve has been achieved by other people half a century later. Gratification has an abstract aspect as it indicates a general progress of gays, however precarious and fragile, but it also has a concrete aspect because the old man knows the young people who have managed to realize what the old man was precluded from. Today the tendency of gays to cry for themselves is decidedly reduced and this is certainly a positive thing, and the same is true for the tendency to ghettoization-selfghettoization, even if the presence of many gays who have realized their dreams heavily marks the distance from their peers who have not succeeded.

Old men, temporarily and in particular cases, can also have a more important role, but these are supportive and substitutive roles with chronological limits and well-defined contours, beyond which the effects would change sign. The old man, in these cases, is like a wooden pole placed next to a small tree to support it, it does not have the task of growing itself, because it is a dry pole, not a tree, but it can allow a green tree to grow. If the tree and the pole are tied with a thin flexible reed, the pole will support the tree for some time, then the reed will dissolve under the effect of the sun and rain, and the tree, having become stronger, will grow in a completely independent way, if instead the pole is tied to the tree with a strong and tight iron wire, over time, the wire will eventually throttle the growing tree.

One basic idea can help old people freeing them from anxieties and expectations, and that is to avoid designing things that come out of narrow individual perspectives or that project too far in time.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)