…”A Whole Pineapple and a Piece of Soufflé Are Actually My Lunch Today” is a mnemonic rhyme for remembering the acids involved in the Krebs cycle, the biochemical pathway through which all living organisms produce energy. (Just understanding what this means goes a long way toward maintaining a sound mind and memory in old age.)
I'm a potential senile dementia patient, at least in the third generation. My grandmother suffered from this disease, and my father, with whom I live under the same roof, is in the active phase of senile dementia, or, in modern terms (my spelling isn't always up to the task), a carrier of Alzheimer's disease.
So what should I do – compile an anthology of the disease and follow the advances of science online (what if they come up with something like a new fairy tale about a fine young man, a beautiful maiden, and rejuvenating apples)?
Senile dementia (if you're not too lazy, check out Wikipedia) is not much to look forward to, but it happens to everyone to some degree.
But where have the wise elders, so revered in the ancient East and, I think, elsewhere, disappeared to in today's world? Where has the truth of the famous old Abkhaz legend of the Ashey Gorge gone?
Children carried infirm old people who were becoming a burden to the tribe to an inaccessible rock for a speedy departure to the next world, so that they would not uselessly consume resources valuable for a new life and would not take up the time needed for obtaining food and raising children with tedious care of themselves.
However, one grateful son, secretly feeding his father on this cliff, helped the tribe avoid great hardship with his advice and practical life experience. The people understood the value of an old man's wisdom, and the Rock of the Old Men in that gorge to this day serves as a reminder of how people sometimes need good advice, unhurried conversation, unobtrusive help, and the objective perspective of a loving grandfather, wise through life's journey.
Where is the modern world heading, feeding an innumerable and ever-growing army of victims of age-related upheavals? Will today's quarrelsome, nervous, negativity-obsessed metropolitan dwellers be able to fulfill the mission of respected elders?
Like it or not, each person will have to choose their next epitaph—I mean, decide on their future—for themselves. Or they can choose not to make any decision at all, just live as they please—that's also a position. And, as a famous hero once said, believe it or not, what awaits us is… and that's up to each individual.
This is all about the benefits of jam, or carbohydrates, that is. Eat some sweets—and remember how to spell the word “eat”—with an “s” or “sh”—without looking up the spelling dictionary.
Now, to the main point. So, how did people in the old days live? How did they outsmart us so completely, despite all our inexhaustible resources and the boundless achievements of scientific and technological progress? I'm talking about the atom, computer science, and the like. They lived a natural life, in tune with biological rhythms. They lived the way perhaps only the creative intelligentsia lives today.
As L. N. Tolstoy noted, “Happiness does not lie in always doing what you want, but in always wanting what you do.”
Balancing the needs of body and soul, they (the ancestors) intuitively followed their personal biological rhythm. How far removed all this is from us humans, compressed by technogenic conventions, precisely those conventions supposedly invented to follow the path to achieving the main goal—competitive productivity of something for someone.
That's all, really. And whether the ultimate winner will be the freewheeling lives of our ancestors, unshackled by the rigid, artificial conventions of our time, or the strict, artificial order (program, rhythm, tempo, etc.) of modernity—life itself will probably decide.
What does dementia have to do with this? It's the main result of technological progress, the result of the influence of its main attributes. Another quote begs to be quoted: “…The special and unique or the repetitive and general, the universal, the concrete or the abstract, perpetual motion or rest, internal or external, quality or quantity, cultural dependence or timeless principles, spiritual struggle and self-change as the permanent human condition or the possibility (and desirability) of rest, order, ultimate harmony, and the satisfaction of all rational human desires—these are some aspects of this opposition” (Isaiah Berlin, “Which Should We Give Preference?”).
And finally. The system of progressive programming leads to more than just personal insanity. Vote for Putin?
P.S. It's time to get ready for work. I dedicate this to my beloved women – my wife (who's also an editor) and my daughter. Live in peace.