The art of laziness

Living a life of pleasure is fun, but it can also become tiresome. Living an ethical life of responsibility is beneficial to the soul, but also boring. I am stuck between the two at times, and I think age has a lot to do with it. A constant reminder of the very visible yoke of age comes daily, as I march up and down Park Avenue noticed by absolutely no one. I really don’t mind, cross my heart; in fact, it makes me laugh at times when I’m dressed to the nines and go unnoticed even by the panhandlers. And being dressed correctly nowadays makes one really stand out, like a giraffe among penguins. But in my case: nothing. Old age makes one invisible, which is fine if you’re a criminal, but not so fine if you have even the tiniest of egos. For women it must be ten times worse, and my heart goes out to female oldies.

With age ambition takes a time-out, as does virulence against injustice, the plight of Palestinians foremost in my mind. Forty years ago I regularly wrote against Israeli illegal settlements and outright seizures of Palestinian lands. The usual and immediate accusations of anti-Semitism followed. If memory serves, it bothered me back then because they were false – the accusations, that is. Now I’m like Rhett Butler and don’t give a damn, but then again I haven’t been writing about the Palestinians, have I? That’s because I’m lazy – according to my wife, ‘the laziest person I’ve ever met who actually does things’. The truth is that I now find most people tedious; I seem to have heard all their stories somewhere along the line. That’s bloody old age again: seen it and done it all.