Not For The Faint of Heart...
This growing old ain’t easy.
“…and while he sighed his body died, in fifteen ways.” Becker/Fagen
I cannot escape this body, this container, this outward presentation of my reality that I have to fit into, to live with, to accept, and, to be in constant contact with, for all of my days on this Earth.
What is it in the being that becomes so attached to its shell ?
I have struggled for my entire life to accept and be comfortable in this body, mostly unsuccessfully, and as I move into “later” life and finally begin to find a process that almost allows me to be at peace with this body, I find that my body has decided to accelerate degeneration and decay. That circumstance has engendered an inner dialogue which challenges even that limited acceptance of process and fragility of peace.
Intellectually and analytically, I certainly understand that this body is finite, that aging is natural, and that dissolution of this body is inevitable as an outcome of life.
Spiritually, I understand that “I” am fortunate to have a human body at all, and that, as human bodies go, this one is at least half-decent, and that my “Self” is aware that ultimately “…all life folds back into the sea.”
Emotionally and psychologically, I am struck by how pervasively my ego identifies with and identifies itself by this frame and its corresponding capabilities…and how the ego will simply just not let go.
In a nod to the innate contrariness of human existence, it seems that, as my hair thins, my hearing and eyesight decline, my muscle mass diminishes, my prostates expands, my liver, kidneys, and sex organ lose form and function…that my inner child becomes louder and louder in demanding that it be fed with external validation - goading and hounding me to; run a 1/2 marathon; press up into a handstand; find a (much) younger sexual partner; trek to Denali back country; tour/rave out to JamGrass bands; and/or a thousand other non-viable activities that will otherwise “prove” that I am worthy and actually living.
This inner conflict between what is real and what is imagined is then exacerbated by the growing awareness that the end is surely coming nearer, and fueled by an ego story and a social structure which stipulates that to not have accomplished all of these things and more is to have failed entirely at this game of life.
So what’s a poor boy to do ?
Perhaps this timely insight from Aruni Futuronsky is just what is required to pacify the demon and to reclaim inner peace;
I Shall Not Want “Your life will have a happy ending.”
Or, perhaps, closer to the bone, these prescient words from Paul Barrere;
“…gives us just one more chance to spin one more yarn. And you know that you’re over the hill When your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill Doin’ the old folks boogie (and boogie we will) ‘Cause to us the thought’s as good as the thrill…”
Finally, today, the aging process has brought me a new awareness of the poignancy of the lyric;
“…the grass ain’t greener, the wine ain’t sweeter…either side of the hill.”
Today : I am growing at my own pace, not needing to force myself to change.
Today : I will meditate upon Nature and the recognition that I am part of all that is…considering that the laws of Nature are identical in my body and every other living body, and that the same consciousness pervades my body and every body…human or otherwise.
https://youtu.be/Q_nFwwjBlEc