Kicking the Vending Machine

Today, I turned 58. Over dinner at a Greek restaurant in Astoria, Roxanne asked how I felt about it. My worldview has certainly changed. Looking around, especially in New York City, people younger than me now make up the majority. When I see them, I remember how I felt at that age. In my twenties, it was the opposite: I had no idea what it was like to be older, so I couldn’t understand most of the people around me.

A few days ago, I overheard Roxanne telling our daughter, “You’ll understand someday.” It’s a common thing older people say to the young. I remember hating it when I was younger. “If you can’t articulate it, keep it to yourself!” I thought. At nearly 60, I still believe that, but I now understand the temptation.

The longer I’ve lived, the more inexpressible sentiments have accumulated. I’ve come to appreciate fiction, literature, and even poetry more, because I now see how impossible it is to convey certain experiences through reason alone. “Articulate,” in its usual sense, implies logic and clarity, but some sentiments defy that. We can’t explain them; we can only reproduce them in others, through poetry, music, or art. I feel I’ve hit the ceiling of what reason alone can achieve.

Although these sentiments are often tangled in irreducible contradictions, I still do feel the urge to express them. That’s the challenge I face at 58: finding ways beyond reason. If the solution can’t be reached through logic, then all I can do is kick the vending machine; try things I’ve avoided or never considered, hoping something will shake loose.

This goes against my natural inclination to solve problems systematically. But much of the artistic process is trial and error; intuiting patterns that can’t be put into words. And when something resonates with someone, even one person, it’s proof that you’ve managed to capture a fragment of that elusive sentiment before it fades.