Hey, Hey, My My

Then there is something else to Manuel's motivations or something other than motivations for being in the bullfighting ring. There is some question here about what happens to people when they are too old to make a living at what they have been doing their whole lives. Sometimes it seems people keep trying to do what they do unsuccessfully to their own downfall or embarrassment. Often times it seems they don't even have much of choice for survival. I think a lot sometimes about the expression, "It's better to burn out than fade away." I don't know if it's true. Sometimes it seems true, but sometimes it seems tragic. Not that tragic can't be true, but maybe by being tragic it makes me want to not believe so much. I believe the phrase was coined by Neil Young in the song 'Hey, Hey, My My (Into the Black), however it's certainly an older concept than that. I know it was quoted by Kurt Cobain in his suicide letter. What is Manuel doing when he attempts to keep bullfighting beyond his ability? Is he burning out or is he fading away? I'd probably say fading away, because I think my understanding of burning out is a more sudden action, such as when the flame of a candle is extinguished. While Manuel's situation seems to be a more successive situation of repeated failures. However, if Manuel is fading away his plight still seems tragic to me.

A little bit more about the candle analogy. Would 'burning out' be considered the candle being extinguished when all the wax is consumed, or the candle being extinguished prematurely to the wax being consumed. It seems 'fading away' would be the slow demise of the flame while the wax slowly runs out, and 'burning out' would be the sudden extinguishing due to an overextended flame or tired out flame. Hmmmm!