[Obadiah]

The Boomers are not handling the later chapters of life well.

That is an interesting point.

A generation who's parents were emotionally distant and angry, the Boomers rebelled and lost themselves in a sense that they really had all the answers to what they perceived as what was wrong in the world. Free love, drugs, and selfish hedonism was their chosen path. All along the way they were convinced that there was no God and that self actualization was the true way to peace and happiness. They sought out and experimented with every sensory potential like drugs, but like Ezekiel, the great priest in the Old Testament, it was all vanity, all chasing the wind.

And, I wonder if you are correct. In the twilight of their years their sense of mortality has now become unbearably inescapable. And an overwhelming sense of futility of life haunting ever louder, all those wasted years, and for what? They have invested so thoroughly in their humanistic, liberal religion and now in the autumn of their years they are empty and facing an eternity unknown.

Yeah, maybe too philosophical here, but this subject has been on my mind and you pointed it out.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

In the twilight of their years their sense of mortality has now become unbearably inescapable. And an overwhelming sense of futility of life haunting ever louder, all those wasted years, and for what? They have invested so thoroughly in their humanistic, liberal religion and now in the autumn of their years they are empty and facing an eternity unknown.

That states it very nicely, I believe.

[bella1]

Mark 8:36 King James Version (KJV)

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

[Big Red Badger]

Chasing the Wind...

THANKS!

[Catmom]

Thank you for reflecting and expanding on my point so beautifully.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"Yeah, maybe too philosophical here, but..."

There are a lot of signs that the American Empire is following a similar arc to the Western Roman Empire. We may have peaked in the 50's and it could be mostly downhill from here.

Romans reacted to the collapse of their empire in a variety of ways: stoicism, hedonism, epicureanism, and Christianity.

Bourdain seems to have been a hedonist who as he aged became an epicurean. One doesn't have to read too far into the news or surf YouTube to find scads of hedonists and an ever-growing army of epicureans. Stoicism is also on the rise. Tom Wolfe wrote a book (A Man in Full) celebrating stoicism and there are even stoicism groups.

Christianity appears to be on the decline as was Roman paganism. Perhaps some new religion will fill the gap that hedonism, epicureanism, and stoicism are unable to fill.

Bourdain's suicide is a great tragedy for his friends and family, but it is also a warning to the rest of us that we are at a very crucial point in American history.