Each old person is a living museum. They remember old ways of dressing, cooking and eating, old words and old ways of thinking. Some try and continue to live in the old way, but others adapt while being aware of what has changed. Technological and social change is now so fast that people in early middle age can feel outdated and hence ‘old’. They watch bewildered at things that are day-to-day and commonplace for younger people, like Facebook, text messaging, and music downloads. Even stranger are fundamental changes in patterns of thought, like the transition from being a steam engine to being a car.
When I was young, absolutely no-one reported that they were experiencing ‘stress’. The common metaphor of the time was the steam engine, which still dominated rail transport. Like a steam engine, people said they were ‘under pressure’ when life became difficult, the answer to which was ‘to let off steam’. This involved some physical activity or other form of release such as drinking and socialising. By the 1970s, however, steam engines and rail transport had largely been replaced in people’s minds by motor transport, and people came to regard themselves as being a type of car. Cars and other fast-moving machines suffer from metal fatigue and stress, and this became the dominant metaphor for the emotional state experienced when people face adversity. The conventional answer to being ‘under stress’ or ‘stressed out’ is inactivity, or possibly handing over responsibility for their condition to a therapist. There is no shortage of these, all promoting their services as helping people avoid the sad fact that life includes a fair share of loss, pain and grief.
As for me, I still think of myself as more of a steam engine than a car. When life gets difficult, I prefer to become more active. Of course, it is still helpful to unburden myself on my wife and others, even if it does make them feel stressed.
In the old days people had the same thoughts, feelings and stresses as they have nowadays. Nothing has changed as we are essentially the same creatures as we were two million years ago (give or take a few years). The evidence for this comes from Shakespeare's sonnets (e.g. 66) and plays (e.g. "To be or not to be...") as well as the writings of Greek and Roman philosophers.
ReplyDeleteNor is knife-crime anything new ("et tu Brute?"), pandemics (see OT for blood, boils, hail and so on), wars (see Quran, OT again, etc.) or politicians abusing their powers (e.g. Plato's "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors").
One of the big differences now is that major arguments are constructed not by thoughtful philosophers and learned academics (with time to read, learn and think) but by television's Jeremy Kyle (and, seemingly, by Jeremy Kyle alone). The tower of Babel is available for all on digital channel throughout the daytime - you can even join in if you phone or email!
There are some chemical advances to treating anxiety and depression but these appear to be associated with economic advance for the manufacturers ... some of whom go so far as to invent illnesses like social anxiety disorder (i.e. shyness) to provide a cure. Given that we have experienced the same fears and stresses as our ancestors for the past two million years perhaps we should accept that these stresses have a positive part to play in our survival. As the near future suggests that we use electric-driven modes of transport perhaps we will see a renewal in the use of electrically-generated metaphors for stress and its relief (I'm already feeling my resistance lowering).