Other episodes available at the above link.
HERE'S the link to the National Citizen's League.
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THE LONELY OLD MAN
Winter is a sadder time than usual for the Lonely Old Man because winter brings with it two reminders of a wasted life.
The first reminder is the season itself which is nature's time of old age. The second is Christmas, which is a time for kids. Having a surfeit of the former and none of the latter has left the Lonely Old Man bitter to the point where he effetely strikes out at life itself and those who are full of life.
Of course, the Lonely Old Man has a weak and dull mind and this tends to blunt his awareness of how deficient he is compared to others. This ameliorates his bitterness a little.
With such a dull mind, the Lonely Old Man is simply not fully aware that he's not fully aware.
It is ever so that nature will soften the blow in such ways when it makes one as deficient as the Lonely Old Man. Just as nature has given the Lonely Old Man slightly lower than normal intelligence, it has also given him lower consciousness so that he is unable to realize that he has low intelligence.
You can imagine, dear friends, how madding it would be if nature gave one low intelligence such as it has given the Lonely Old Man, but at the same time had given him occasional higher consciousness such that he could almost step outside of himself momentarily and look back at himself and be aware that he was trapped inside a deficient brain.
As a child, the Lonely Old Man would play with mud and be content all day long with making mud pies, while the kids around him would be making rockets and complex castles.
Because of his limited intelligence, the Lonely Old Man couldn't even see that what he was doing and what the other kids were doing was any different, so he was happy in his own simple way. And, this is the way his whole life progressed.
As he grew up, he took a job in an office and he spent decades shuffling paper. Because of his dull mind, he felt fulfilled. After all, he got a paycheck. He could buy food. He could buy a new car every so often. Yes, life was good for the dull minded Lonely Old Man.Today, in his old age, his thoughts are simple ones as they have always been. But, now, in his rare lucid moments, he is vaguely aware of his mortality and the eternal nothingness that awaits him, and he wonders if this is all there is to life: buying a new car, buying small meals for himself and eating them in a sterile home that has never known the laughter of children.
As he looks in his mirror, the Lonely Old Man sees, looking back at him, one who looks like a eunuch. But the Lonely Old Man does not know this word. The facial features of the one in the mirror are too soft for a man, but he doesn't realize this. The flesh is pallid and squishy, but it looks normal to him. There is no squareness and there are no chiseled features, he thinks that's fine. His beard has never grown very fast and he rarely needs to shave, but he thinks that's normal. He sees soft feminine looking skin and features covering a layer of body fat that is the usual product of estrogen rather than testosterone, but he doesn't see the pattern. He sees a face without the life force, but doesn't know it. He sees the body of someone who is incapable of making more like himself, but he tells himself--ever so emptily--that he never wanted children anyway, they're such a bother.
But, again, do not waste too much pity on the Lonely Old Man and his barren and infertile existence marked by the fact that he lacks generative power both in his brain and his loins for with his slow brain he has little understanding of the fact that life is like a relay race and one is given a baton by one's ancestors to carry for a time and then hand off to one's descendants so that the family line and the DNA recipe that is unique to that family line carries on, maybe one day, to the stars.
Stars? The Lonely Old Man is barely aware of them. They are just lights in the sky. He has no thoughts of someday having his DNA recipe land on planets around far distant stars. Such thoughts are too big for the Lonely Old Man. His thoughts are about buying a TV dinner, and reminiscing about how he sure liked making those mud pies when he was a child.
He goes to the window and peers through the blinds and it is dark outside and he sees nothing. Nothing but darkness. Just nothing. Nothing more. Forever.
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