John King:
CLASS OF 1965
El Cerrito High SchoolClass of 1965
El cerrito, CA
Northern Arizona University - Arts & SciencesClass of 1989
Flagstaff, AZ
John's Story
There are many approaches to an autobiographic narrative. Usually people expect some kind of unfinished obituary. However everyone knows that a life, especially a contemporary life, really is expressed only with many fairly discrete narratives.
A "success story", or a story of specific spectacular failure, might proceed in a clear sequence, but there would be many "off-topic" items left out. And in any case, who is likely to present to a vague assembly of people the pathos and existential confusions in the multiple simultaneous pathways of his experience? Only an intense dialogue with a peer or friend might be appropriate for this.
If I were to choose a universal narrative to express the requirements of this "profile" section, then it would be better to yield the podium to a great artist:
__________
William Shakespeare - All the world's a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and m...Expand for more
odern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
__________
"And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow."
This, the third age, was a focal point for me far beyond its normal course.
The fourth age, of the "soldier" (read as struggling young adult, with typical sass and swagger, seeking a perch in the raucous rookery of wage slavery, peer approbation, serendipitous opportunity, etc.) was not to my liking. It was my wont to detach myself as possible in wilderness, philosophy, eccentric self-discovery.
What of the fifth age? (read as some semblance of honorable professional or other socially respectable achievement, the lineaments of a "public life"). I acquired a degree in analytical chemistry, a credential of good utility, which has kept me viable in the job world.
If the "new 40" is "60" then we are all somewhere in the fifth age sliding too rapidly towards the sixth age (remember that in Shakespeare's time the 50s was ripe old age). It is interesting to observe the products coming onto the market to mitigate elements of "a world too wide for his shrunk shank".
Many of us have (or recently had) parents in the seventh age. It is the fate of us all.
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