The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail. No beginning, no end, and therefore a symbol of the eternal cycle of things. There’s a lot of mythology that goes with it, and if you’re interested, you can go here to read more about it. I’m usually a very 2-dimensional girl, but I made this out of Sculpey. I don’t like the biting part, so I made my snake never-ending without pain. I suppose that’s unrealistic, but that’s the way I’d like life to be.Today was one of those days when all the old people escaped into public places -- the nasty and/or daft old people. You know them. They’re the types who run over your foot with the grocery cart, stand in the middle of the aisle so nobody can go anywhere, and drive about 15 mph below the speed limit in a 25 mph zone. They don’t remember how money works any more, but they can tell you about how they used to grind flour between stones.
As I was stuck driving home behind an oldster straddling 2 lanes of traffic with the left blinker permanently on, it occurred to me that just perhaps, the old people were only there to annoy me because I wanted a distraction today. My mind was twirling with worries about other problems, bigger problems I can’t do a thing about because it doesn’t matter how much wisdom I acquire, people are going to make their own mistakes. I really hate that. I guess that’s why it’s just easier to get mad at old people, while I worry about how they’re going to carry their groceries inside, if they’ll have an accident, and why aren’t their relatives taking care of them anyway? Then I feel more impotent aggravations on top of my other impotent aggravations.
Ohmmmm…
It all boils down to what goes around, comes around. All of us came into the world naked and helpless, go to school, despair over pimples, get our hearts broken, get jobs, fall in love, go to the grocery store… and eventually we’re old, and eventually after that, we’ll die. We’re replaced by younger generations who will go through exactly the same things, the same way we replaced the people before us. I’m not sure if this provides me with comfort or a sense of futility about all of our struggles.
My mom’s neighbor gave me an old newspaper a while ago. It’s dated October 8, 1914, so British troops rushing to Antwerp was the main headline, but they found a lot of space for gossip on the front page. People don’t seem very different then than they are today.Let’s just sing with the Byrds :)
