beings, becomings & once-beens

2023, october 18

talking with t. and k., we often get into how society usually doesn’t see children as beings, but rather as becomings. when something awful happens to a child, the concern leans less towards their current being and more towards the grown-up they will become. will they be permanently damaged? or will this experience forge them into a stronger, more resilient person? these are the kinds of questions that frame children as becomings, not beings. this was a major mindblow for me a few years back in our discussions about concepts of childhood and such. there is this incredible shift that happens when we start seeing children as beings from the very start. or as both beings and becomings, just like we can view ourselves as both. more on this some other time.

right now, i want to capture another thought. i’ve just finished liane moriarty’s ‘nine perfect strangers’ and something struck me about the middle-aged characters. they’re so wrapped up in what they used to be. this past self is a constant theme, both in their minds and in how others see them. after becoming and being, they’ve now entered the stage of what I’d call once-been. (actually, i would like to call it has-been, but that is already a standing term for people who were once successful and glamorous and are now dusty and bloated) anyway, it seems to me that upper-middle-aged people both in moriarty’s novel and in real life are depicted as if their original persona is obscured by age. as if their core appearance is buried under layers of age-chubbiness and sagging skin. they define themselves by what they once used to be, not by their current being. when they assess each other’s attractiveness, they’re not looking at the present face, but trying to see behind it: was this an attractive person back in the day?

in societies that value age, it seems different. at mamas birthday party, her seventieth year was celebrated in a big way. her korean friends hung up banners: ‘life begins at seventy!’ from this perspective, it appears that older people are seen as embodying the richness of their lived life. it’s the abundant life that’s living inside the seventy-year-old and not a buried statue from their heyday.