Drunkenness and youth share in a reckless irresponsibility and the illusion of timelessness. The young and the drunk are both reprieved from that oppressive, nagging sense of obligation that ruins so much of our lives, the worry that we really ought to be doing something productive instead. It’s the illicit savor of time stolen, time knowingly and joyfully squandered. There’s more than one reason it’s called being “wasted.” ...
I don’t drink like that anymore. My old drinking buddies fell victim to the usual tragedies: careers, marriage, mortgages, children. ...
But drinking was also an excuse to devote eight consecutive hours to sitting idly around having hilarious conversations with friends, and I am still not convinced there is any better possible use of our time on earth. Lately, in these more temperate years, I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s Henry plays after Falstaff has died; it’s as if, having put riotous youth behind, there’s now a place in life for things like dignity and honor and even great accomplishment — but it also feels, sometimes, as if everything best and happiest and most human has gone out of the world.
More here. Even during riotous youth, I think most of us already do expect our lives to eventually have "dignity and honor and even great accomplishment"—but it seems like there is so much time left to get those things, and meanwhile everybody else is partying right now. Why miss out?
Of course, life doesn't work that way, but the point is that the younger we are, the greater the illusion that we can have it all. We assume that once we get to our late twenties and thirties, then we'll become serious about our careers, stop carousing until the wee hours, start a family, and put away money for retirement. We start focusing more on the future when there is less of it left.
Comments