Ellipsism is the term given to a sense of sadness one experiences when realizing that one won’t live to see the future. For example, an elderly person may be sad because he won’t get to see a newborn baby age into adulthood.
Of late, I have been observing that ellipsism or the hints of it all around me. I just turned 68, and most of my friends are younger than me by a year or two. I have seen the shades of ellipsism expressed by my friends in various fora, not to mention my own share of this feeling when I see some of my ex-colleagues talk about their newfound experiences as grandparents. But I digress.
I have been ruminating about this affliction experienced by these who are otherwise very successful in various aspects of their life. They seem to be (seem to being the operative word) having quite a few regrets about their choices in the past. This was slightly baffling to me since these are known to cerebrate all the important aspects of their life.
Upon further cogitating on the topic, I felt there should not be (m)any reasons for ellipsism for all those I observed. Especially, about the things that they did not do in the past. After spending some time ratiocinating on the subject, I theorized that the probable cause is that they seem to be focusing on their success in life as singular events rather than a summation. Let me articulate my point with the following two examples. Let them represent two singular events in a person’s accomplishments in life.
The above two images lend themselves to resulting in some sort of feeling of ellipsism especially if one feel this in late life. But then if they change their perspective and focus more holistically on their life, the result may be quite different and far from being a set of singular events.
Epilog: When I came across this term my reaction was experiencing ellipsism but a sense of regret. I wish I knew this term or the underlying concept a lot sooner. How I wish I could go back in time to when my parents were still alive and healthy. It would have given me a better understanding of their exulansis.
I was so smug nay even arrogant to think that I have convinced them about the timeline for milestone events in my life while (almost) totally discarding their inputs and their feelings behind the inputs. Little did I knew then that they simply gave upon it.
I would hasten to add emphatically that I do not regret in the least about the trajectory my life took so far and look forward to my life without ellipsism, hopefully. It is a rather wistful reminiscing rather than the regretting the choices I made. I have no way of knowing whether I would have followed my parents’ suggestions or not, because I did not give them a chance to share their thoughts.
Oh, well such is life. Live richly, my friends, live richly.
