There comes a time
As an oldie myself, I could not help sympathising with actor Tom Cruise four or five days ago when garish media stories went viral about a stunt that went wrong whilst he was filming a roof top chase sequence for the movie Mission: Impossible 6.
I should add here that I don’t get out much these days so astute readers may get some idea of my exact vintage from the fact that whilst I distinctly remember going to the cinema to see the original (1996 it says here on Google) Mission Impossible … and think I may have seen Mission Impossible 2 on television at some point … I’m afraid that said movie franchise numbers 3, 4 and 5 in the series have completely passed me by and I can state with some certainty that I shall not be going to see Mission: Impossible 6.
[Furthermore, hasn’t somebody in the marketing department made a bish with the title there, or possibly a facile grammatical error?].
It later emerged that the 55 year-old actor – who therefore (even I can work out) was 34 when he made the original Mission Impossible movie – has a fetish about insisting upon doing his own stunts and actually broke his ankle when he crashed against the wall of a building when supposedly leaping from one roof to another.
See here for a video of the sequence, courtesy of – YOUTUBE
They say there are seven ages of Man and there are certainly about that number of stages that we all go through in this life. Having been a keen all-round sports participant in my youth – not to any special degree of proficiency, mind – I noticed one of them in my late thirties, largely through instances of playing golf.
Gradually, over time, I began to register that I stiffened up after completing my rounds and going to the bar afterwards for a drink and/or a bite to eat whilst checking my group’s scores and reliving the highlights of our respective performances.
Let me add in passing that, year by year, the practice of reliving my golf-playing highlights of the day in the bar took less and less time because there were fewer and fewer of them – to the point where they disappeared altogether.
However, the stiffness didn’t. By my mid-forties I had discovered that my post-golf limbs habitually seized up altogether at the lunch table, requiring me thereafter to hobble outside and hoist myself gingerly into my car before setting off homewards.
Subsequently, by the time I got there, it was a matter of considerable effort and discomfort for me to spill out of the car and drag myself (plus golf bag, trolley and shoes) back into the house and flop into my favourite TV armchair … and several hours later to get myself to bed.
The only consolation was that – miraculously, by the next morning – all my aches and pains had lifted and I was back to normal.
Until the following weekend and the next round of golf.
I recently compared notes with a brother who is five years plus my junior, aged 60.
He was talking of retiring from golf on the grounds that these days he could barely manage a single half-decent shot per round and had recently either slept badly on his right shoulder and/or strained it in some way which made it painful for him to even attempt a golf swing.
I advised him to ‘join the club’.
Once you get past about 55, in my view, when it comes to physical activities, anyone with an ounce of common sense and self-awareness recognises that they are in the realm of managing their frailties, injuries, chronic conditions and limitations. Enjoyment and the sheer physical thrill of exerting yourself are mere fading memories. The animal urges just to relish mano-a-mano competition for what it is and/or the satisfaction of emerging victorious in a life/death struggle barely come into it. You are engaged in the most primeval and existential quest of all – that to survive another day.
Currently I’ve got varicose veins growing in my left leg calf, problems with my left foot consequent upon the removal of two nerves due to a pair of Morton’s Neuromas, a distinctly dicky right shoulder and a chronic pulled muscle somewhere in my right elbow that just won’t clear up.
If I was still in sixth form at school and/or in my heyday mid-twenties, I’d probably be taking a month off physical activity altogether, relaxing and getting myself fully fit again, and then returning to all-action fray with relish.
These days, however, I just grit my teeth and ‘get on with it’, probably for fear that otherwise – i.e. if I ‘downed tools’ for more than a week – I might never be able to revive the willpower or physical strength to return to the playing field.
Any playing field. Ever.
Tom – me old mate – let an old man give you some advice.
Forget all your instincts about striving to ‘hold back time’ and/or ‘use it or lose it’.
Embrace the modern world of movie computer-generated imagery (CGI) and fancy tricks, create yourself a 3D hologram ‘avatar’ and let that go out into the world to earn you a very-healthy annual fortune, thank you … whilst you sit at home sipping an ice pint glass of Pimm’s (with all the trappings) before having your evening meal served and going to bed at 8.30pm.
There comes a time in life when you’ve lost it and there’s nothing you can do about it. Better to accept it and give up, i.e. than make yourself look a complete idiot by fighting against nature … and quite possibly doing yourself an injury in the process.
That’s what I do …
