The other night I watched "The Verdict"
I have a major soft spot for Paul Newman ever since I wrote that ten page research paper about him my senior year of high school.
I do this weird thing from time to time. I like to watch movies starring actors who in their day were the hottest men in film but are now older.
I find myself wondering during the films how these men feel about the inevitable process of aging. I can't help but think how it must feel for them to have their career, their identity in their looks. Their fame and success founded on an outward appearance that is slowly taken from them not because of anything they did or because someone else took it, but rather the march of time and gravity.
I don't know why I am strangely intrigued by mortality but there is something about the dichotomy of the immortality of a film and the finitude of the actors who star in them. I wonder what it was like for the first generation of humans who experienced this contrast through photography.
Sure many people had been painted prior to photographs and I'm sure some looked back at the piece and reflected upon the change. But a painting is a physical display of the painters perception of the individual. A painter may be fooled by her own brain believing the subject to look a way they do not actually look. Or feeling pressured for the subjects approval the artist may take liberties not unlike the modern day photographer touching up through Photoshop.
But their must have been this moment in that generation, the first photography generation, when they looked back upon old photographs of people and realized how much time had changed them. I wonder what that must have been like for the first time in humanity we had physical evidence of the aging process. A process all of them had to be very familiar with but now were able to literally come face to face with it.
How strange.
Nothing stays the same.
sequoias tip over
mountains erode
stars burn out
empires fall
people age
But what can anyone do about it? Even if I spent every day of my life traveling or as a millionaire or solving world hunger at the end of the day we may all look back and say we could have done it better, we would have done it differently.
I shouldn't have spent my teen years playing video games
I shouldn't have spent my 20's watching sports and TV
I should have been learning ceramics
I should have played my guitar more
I should have went out on the weekends more
I should have went to grad school sooner
I should have spent more time with my children
I should have told the people I love how I feel about them
I should have quit that job years ago
Even if we do everything I'm sure we will find ways to look back upon our lives and think we could have done it better. I bet every one of those actors would give lists of the mistakes they make, the roles they passed on, the lines they could reread, the charity they could do...
How strange we are.
Does everything go away?
Yeah, everything goes away
Mark Wilkinson - When I'm Not Around
I have a major soft spot for Paul Newman ever since I wrote that ten page research paper about him my senior year of high school.
I do this weird thing from time to time. I like to watch movies starring actors who in their day were the hottest men in film but are now older.
I find myself wondering during the films how these men feel about the inevitable process of aging. I can't help but think how it must feel for them to have their career, their identity in their looks. Their fame and success founded on an outward appearance that is slowly taken from them not because of anything they did or because someone else took it, but rather the march of time and gravity.
I don't know why I am strangely intrigued by mortality but there is something about the dichotomy of the immortality of a film and the finitude of the actors who star in them. I wonder what it was like for the first generation of humans who experienced this contrast through photography.
Sure many people had been painted prior to photographs and I'm sure some looked back at the piece and reflected upon the change. But a painting is a physical display of the painters perception of the individual. A painter may be fooled by her own brain believing the subject to look a way they do not actually look. Or feeling pressured for the subjects approval the artist may take liberties not unlike the modern day photographer touching up through Photoshop.
But their must have been this moment in that generation, the first photography generation, when they looked back upon old photographs of people and realized how much time had changed them. I wonder what that must have been like for the first time in humanity we had physical evidence of the aging process. A process all of them had to be very familiar with but now were able to literally come face to face with it.
How strange.
Nothing stays the same.
sequoias tip over
mountains erode
stars burn out
empires fall
people age
But what can anyone do about it? Even if I spent every day of my life traveling or as a millionaire or solving world hunger at the end of the day we may all look back and say we could have done it better, we would have done it differently.
I shouldn't have spent my teen years playing video games
I shouldn't have spent my 20's watching sports and TV
I should have been learning ceramics
I should have played my guitar more
I should have went out on the weekends more
I should have went to grad school sooner
I should have spent more time with my children
I should have told the people I love how I feel about them
I should have quit that job years ago
Even if we do everything I'm sure we will find ways to look back upon our lives and think we could have done it better. I bet every one of those actors would give lists of the mistakes they make, the roles they passed on, the lines they could reread, the charity they could do...
How strange we are.
Does everything go away?
Yeah, everything goes away
Mark Wilkinson - When I'm Not Around