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so much of
i think the art of getting older is this thing that eric erickson talked about as generativity
which involves
many things like for example ceding
the stage center of the stage for the next generation
really coming to terms with your limitations i mean really looking at the way in which
uh...
life doesn't offer everything that you had hoped it would
you can think about that as a kind of negative depressive thing that you just have to deal
with and accept
but I actually think that you can think about it more positively than that I mean sure it's painful and sure
there's a lot to mourn
but there's also
possibility in all these limitations I mean the more that you you know
the more that you in a way collide with the realities of life
there's also a way in which i think you can grow and find a lot of meaning and it's not only
a problem in our generation I think we see it with kids i do a lot of talking about kids and sexuality
uh... and
one of the things that comes up again and again is the way that that kids who are growing
up in this world of infinite possibility
end up really searching for meaning 'cause they're trying to find like what's going to mean anything
if I can just have whatever i want whenever i want it uh... it's an empty
making thing so bringing it all back now to marriage i think
one of the things that
and frankly I want to be clear when I'm talking about marriage I'm not just talking about marriage in
the sense of a legal name marriage I'm talking about
a deep personal commitment to work something through with somebody else over time
it is an incredible exercise at its best in learning about limitation
but in a very positive way
about learning about how
whenever you make a choice
you have to give something up as well as get something
which is I think an exercise that we lose track of so much in this culture I mean I don't know whether
we'll get to talk about this but
promiscuity and monogamy
are wonderful examples of that what you
what you get and what you give up when you make a choice to be monogamous and I'm not
talking about in the kind of moralistic sense that i think railroads that argument these days
I'm more talking about in a kind of emotional and
psychological sense