I have been watching my son wrestle with the problem of getting motor insurance as a young man of only 19, and I've been really impressed with watching the way he has refused to back down in the face of madly yoyo-ing online quotations. It's clear that he is completely committed to running this car, and he is showing some serious resourcefulness in making it happen. He really wants it, and I'm doing my Proud Dad routine while I watch him beating the whole issue into submission. I've given him the whole lecture about how much it's really going to cost him, and, for sure, he has nodded and 'heard' what I've been saying in that rather detached and amused way that teenagers have when their parents try to teach them something that they don't want to learn.
But, by the same token, I recognise that the focus he is showing is something I envy. I remember having it in spades at his age, for certain things. And I wonder whether there is really any of it left for the things I say I still want to achieve in my silvering years. Part of becoming middle aged is realising that powers that I once took for granted are on the wane, desires are more muted and the driving energy of youth is now housed in a comfy and slow automatic that struggles up hills and doesn't do much in the overtaking lane any more.
Can we, in these mature and responsible years, conjure it all up again for one last hurrah, one more quixotic moment of abandonment to the unknown consequences of pursuing a half-remembered dream? I don't know, and there's a lot of not-knowing about at the moment, but I sure hope so. Because even as I yield to the appeal of becoming more contemplative, more Zen-like, less attached, more 'spiritual', I know that the juice of life still brings appetite back, and without appetite, I may just give up eating and fade away.