My father's life, with its tumultuous ebbs and flows, left a repository of wisdom amidst the flotsam and jetsam. Few wrote better on the subjects of aging and the inexorable march toward life's finale than a man who’d been telling my brother and me that our lives were “half over” since our late-20s.
When I immerse myself in the ocean of memories and the extensive trove of emails he bequeathed, a theme crystallizes—the stark dichotomy of aging. He painted a picture of two prevailing routes one might traverse in their receding years: one path shrouded in despair over dreams unfulfilled, and another fraught with a desperate clamor for busyness, perhaps to obscure satisfaction, or more likely, to elude the gaping maw of emptiness that no accumulation of achievements can satiate. This hard-won wisdom, distilled through his unique blend of direct counsel and the vivid tableau of his own misspent life, illuminated the intricate dance of fulfillment, regret, and the quest for meaning with an uncommon clarity.
Oliver Thomas "Tom" Bateman, my father, was an enigma—a person of contradictions, right down to a preferred first name that changed a half-dozen times during the six decades he spent a step or two ahead of John Law. To the untrained eye, his life might resemble a feverish pursuit of what he liked to call the "god almighty dollar," marked by athletic prowess gone to wrack and ruin as well as an eclectic assortment of entrepreneurial ventures, their ethicality as dubious as their outcomes. Yet, beneath this relentless quest for worldly acclaim and wealth, lay a soul thirsting for literary expression, a spirit that revered the arts as the ultimate human endeavor but found itself ensnared in the web of a markedly different reality. His reflections on aging, relayed through messages brimming with philosophical musings, humor tinged with cynicism, and at times, visceral expressions of regret, unveil a profound grappling with the notion of life's final chapter—the inescapable "big sleep" that haunted his waking dreams.
This juxtaposition—the external facade of success versus the internal longing for creative fulfillment—mirrors the dichotomy of aging he elucidated. He portrayed the latter years as laden with potential despair for those who mourn the divergence of their lives from their youthful ambitions. My father's narrative, embroidered with the richness of diverse experiences yet also marred by incessant, often self-inflicted personal defeats, embodies this perspective. His introspections explored the concept of squandered potential, not in the arenas of commerce or financial success, but in the realms of artistic pursuit and genuine self-expression.
"Every god-damned choice seemed right at the moment, but here I am, looking back at a maze of paths not taken, wonders not pursued, and I know in my heart of hearts that I would do all it over again in one half of a split fucking second," he wrote in a particularly reflective email. This confession embodies the essence of his inner turmoil—a constant battle between the allure of societal accolades and the pursuit of what he perhaps saw as his true calling.
Conversely, he cautioned against immersing oneself in ceaseless activity or labor in the sunset years, a strategy of diversion that ultimately converges on the same end: the stark realization of life's transience and the insufficiency of relentless endeavor to fill the soul's existential vacuum. This resonance was not merely philosophical but a vivid chapter from the story of his life—a narrative of a man who, despite a litany of pursuits and a host of near-triumphs, found himself wrestling with the essence of his own existence as he edged closer to its denouement.
"Busyness," he once opined in a trenchant critique of modern life's hustle, "is the anesthesia through which we numb the pain of purposelessness. I played that game too, only to find the goalposts receding into the mist as the final whistle blew. You’re always already down by a touchdown with no timeouts left. Life, by contrast, only has to run out the clock."
Through his emails, my father offered not just guidance but a living testament to these divergent paths. He underscored the value of perception, of adeptly navigating the chessboard of life, yet his discourses often betrayed a yearning for something far more authentic—a life lived in allegiance to true passion, whatever that might be, rather than the ephemeral glow of public adulation. His erratic career trajectory, from the long-gone glory days on the football field to the tumultuous realms of business and eventually the uncharted waters of hunting for “sugar mommas” via online dating systems then in their infancy, illuminated his internal conflict—a man torn between craving recognition and yearning for the authentic expression of his innermost self.
In one of his more candid moments, he laid bare the emptiness of his existence: "I chased shadows, mistaking them for substance, only to find myself grasping at the air. The applause was loud, yet how hollow it echoes today in the silent auditorium of my conscience."
My father's parting wisdom—he spent the better part of a decade emailing me his last words, arrayed in prose both high and low—interwoven with his thoughts on mortality, dispelled any illusions of fulfillment I might’ve harbored. He implored me, through the prism of his life and the profundity of his reflections, to navigate the delicate balance between the allure of external achievements and the pursuit of internal contentment, to treasure the quest for real passions over the fleeting adulation of the “frens” who’d forget me in that aforementioned “one half of a split fucking second” once I ceased to be of use to them. His musings on the inexorable advance toward "the big sleep" constitute a memento mori that reminds us that the measure of our lives isn’t the fanfare of our activities or the accounting of our accomplishments in the public ledger, but the fidelity with which we honor our deepest yearnings and aspirations.
In the weeks before he died, he revisited the playing-field metaphors that appeared throughout his writing: "Now I understand that the real race was not against the clock, but against myself. There, victory lies not in the trophies gathered, but in whatever uneasy ceasefire is hammered out on the battleground of the soul." Worldly success was fleeting, the enduring quest for inner peace destined to remain incomplete, and death the great equalizer that dispelled all our hopes and fears.