old age

Love Long

They loved each other in a way. It was a mystery even after decades. They had loved passionately and then with bitter desire, and then with silence; The silence came with goals and purpose, each their own. They loved without words.

And now after so long together, they loved in even a different way. It now came unnoticeably and without fanfare or warning. It was as surprising as breathing or a bland meal. IT was no longer daily or weekly, but yearly. IT was quiet, almost difficult to define. It was there but only barely.

Perhaps love runs its course in those of us who do such things? But they hung on nevertheless, always looking for more or better even when those things were not important. Even when, with years of thought, they realized that they never really existed. But they loved each other anyway.

Their love was either unfathomably deep like and endless ocean, or dry and imaginary like a mirage in the desert. It didn’t matter anyway. Not after so many years. Not after so many secrets had been shared and promises made.

Age

It is a peculiar thing, age. In some ways clarifying, opening unseen pages of a book that we have forgotten. And in some ways oppressive, sucking the life-energy, the blood from our veins.

How we think about age matters long before we grow old.

In those years before age we talk of the past in terms of years and then decades, not often thinking of ourselves as young or old. We simply are, and this is good. But it would behoove us in our impetuous years to consider our own age then, and in the future.

When we are young we create our older selves.

Age comes upon us quietly and shrouds us in doubt and apathy, in fear and pain. Unmotivated to act we must draw upon our younger selves. Those times when we knew what we were capable of. When we are old we need to know our limitations. It is a different side of the same coin.

So if we know our limitations, and strive to know what we are capable of the child within will never really go away. We can live comfortably knowing we are old but believing we are young.

We can spend our old age playing like children.

Finish Work

When all else is done, there is finish work.  The details that make a house a home; it is the same details that make life worth living.  But finish work takes time; there are many pieces to be placed, to be sanded slightly, to be fit snug in their place.

Finish work is quiet and it takes time, most often it takes much more time than we might believe.  But finish work is what we walk into each and every day and each and every time we walk into a room.  It is the finish that we see.

Carpentry is life and the finish work that we begin is reliant upon the work we’ve put into our lives in those years that seem to rush by and at the same time slow to a crawl.  In our youth we build a house, sometimes hurriedly, and when we get older we cannot understand why the base boards don’t miter quite right or why the casing won’t quite meet the wall.

In our age and years of living we can no longer rush but are now slowed by the weight of time and it is then we are faced with the finish work in what we have built.  Bad habits show and new habits form even without our knowing.

But it is in the finish that we learn that good enough is not nearly good enough for the finish work that we have to do.

Pick Your Paths Carefully

How to Choose Between Two Paths in Life | JP Morgan Creating

Some may remember a series of books by Carlos Castenada written in the seventies about a “real, spiritual”** adventure taken by Mr. Castenada, soon afterwards debunked.  In these books the concept of human battles was presented; battles against fear, power, clarity and finally old age.

Fear is the first of the four battles that we must, as individuals and societies, overcome.  While fear is evolutionarily founded on the overwhelming desire to survive, in the context of our modern lives it often misinforms us given our homogeneous societies, given the social pressures that we all endure: mind your parents, go to school, get married, have kids, and retire.  Fear, I have found, often leads many people down paths that they never wanted, that they never desired and stunts intellectual growth.  In short, most of our fear is disconnected from its evolutionary roots of survival and has become a road block to personal growth.

Once we realize that fear is sometimes founded, but more often not founded in reality, we recognize the power that the realization offers us.  Power comes in many forms, one of the more common forms is money.  With money comes security and with security comes the illusion of power.  Our happiness, our contentedness, our self becomes defined by the power that we hold as all important and they (in turn) become dependent on the power that we believe we have.  Soon enough the slave becomes the master.

Our happiness, our contentedness and our security safely put in their virtuous places we are enlightened to the fact that our lives are short and perhaps insignificant in the grande scheme of things.  Perhaps we recognize that independence is based upon understanding and curiosity and that it is these concepts that lead us to the ever illusive peace and contentedness that seems to elude so many.  The universe opens up, we achieve Nirvana, we find god(s); we are clear about our place and purpose in the universe.  And then we are old.

Our bodies let is down when our minds should be at their best.  Aches and pains sneak up on us as we watch the universe expand beyond our comprehension.  We have lived enough years to realize the regrets that we fought so hard not to have, and now some changes, some things, are outside of our grasp.  Our clarity drives these truths home, and we watch as our happiness is now in danger.

It is at this point that we must make our choice, according to Castenada: to jump into the abyss leaving all we know behind, or to fade toward the light and into the oblivion of the masses.  The one leads to loneliness, and the other leads to loss of self; and it is at this point that we face our old enemy fear again and the journey begins again.  Pick your paths carefully and fight like a Viking.

**I believe this phrase to be oxymoronic.