Читать книгу The Great Reduction - Jay Trott - Страница 6

When we are young, we might be inclined to read these words as a blistering critique of society and manners, like Thackeray’s famous book. But that is not what they are at all. They are an outburst from an old man who has grown tired of life—and mostly of himself.

Solomon had suddenly become aware of his mortality. We’ll get into this in more depth later on. Now of course we do know we are mortal, even from a young age. But in old age it ceases to be just head knowledge and becomes personal—in fact every time we look in the mirror.

This momentous shift in our point of view changes everything. Once you’ve seen your mortality, you cannot go back. You can’t become young and careless again. You are stuck where you are. And the place where Solomon was stuck was not good.

Before going on, let us take a moment to praise happy old men. We see them all the time in movies and on TV and at the country club. We have no intention of questioning their happiness. In fact we are very glad for them—if they are happy.

But that was not what Solomon was. He was more like the rest of us. The unhappiness we experience as young men and women starts to become a little desperate as it spills over into old age, because we begin to realize that it is unlikely to go away.

We live our whole lives dreaming of the time when we will grow old and wise and retire and be happy. We live in hope of enjoying our “golden years.” But what happens to hope when that time comes and we still are not happy? What happens when old age seems more like a trap than a release?

When we are young, we think of gray hair as a sign of contentment and being reconciled to the world. But to the person who actually has gray hair, it is a sign of old age, decline, and benign neglect. It is a sign that time is growing short, which makes unhappiness seem more pronounced.

Solomon has seen all this, and his reaction is a bitter outburst. “All is vanity.” He does not mean there is nothing of value in God’s creation. He does not mean there is no value in mortals or their work. He means he is still unhappy after all these years, and therefore all of his striving was in vain.