Rolling with this into my new year…

I’ve been thinking about this post for a few days and maybe longer. This is longer than I’d like and not completely true to my intent of just rolling with my thoughts when it comes to writing for this blog. Rather than continuing to plan out the post, I thought it best to start writing!

My birthday was a couple of days ago. I was born on January 20th, just a few weeks after the new year. Over the past number of years, I’ve appreciated and continue to appreciate the time between January 1 and January 20 as a period of time for me to reflect and think. I find it really difficult to do this leading up to the traditional end of the year, December 31. The build up to the holidays and the bombardment of year end preparations makes it tough for me to sit back and collect my thoughts related to the year that’s just passed and the year that’s about to begin.

That’s why I like Jan 1 to Jan 20. I treat this time as an extension of the new year and use it to think and reflect on the year that’s just passed and the year that’s about to begin. The almost three weeks is a nice period of time where I can do this thinking at a more leisurely pace that trying to pack it in by December 31. I also find, at least in my experience, that it’s a much quieter time to think, as many people are usually focused on getting their own year started and making fewer requests of other people.

This year I was fortunate to spend some time on an island at the beach just after the new year. This was a great setting for me to catch up on some reading, among other things.

I subscribed to Monocle magazine this past year. Since receiving my first issue, I hadn’t really set aside as much time in my schedule to read the magazine as I would have liked. I brought the Dec/Jan issue as well as the Monocle 100 supplement with me on vacation and was looking forward to leisurely working my way through both publications.

I particularly enjoyed one of the essays, Essay 2/5, “On Being Older and Wiser”, in the Monocle 100 supplement, written by Andrew Tuck, “The very wise, and not so old, editor of Monocle.” Here are some of the quotes that I appreciated and resonated with me. “They” in these quotes refers to “a generation of seniors (who are reinventing wisdom) who have been there and done it, and intend to do it all again.

“They have discovered that change is healthy and enriching.”

“They know to scoff at the young ones who preen and pose, and instead they take to the dancefloor (the real and the proverbial) to celebrate having life.”

“And they know that the best times are still to come.”

The essay then goes on to to talk about “a more serious wise…the kind that often takes hold of people who have faced some darkness, been tested by health, an adversary or tragedy and have come through it. Have not been broken. They have a kind of calm, a sense of what really matter, that stills a room. But luckily most of us are not forced to wear this cloak. And we needn’t worry.”

This paragraph threw me for a loop. I was on-board with Andrew through most of the article, including this paragraph, then found the paragraph concluding in a way that was very different from my expectations. This also reminds me of a comment made by a colleague, who later became a friend, when he observed that much listening is done by hearing the beginning and end of a statement or idea and only reacting if the end isn’t what you were expecting when you heard the beginning.

When thinking through this post, it’s exactly at this point I found myself getting stuck. I find myself stuck again while trying to write my way through it. I think what threw me off is that I can relate personally to the first part of the paragraph, however don’t feel “forced to wear (the) cloak”. Something about Andrew’s connection implied to me that when you’re tested in life by difficulties, you are then burdened with a cloak of I’m not sure what, and that if you’ve avoided being tested by difficulties in life, as most are, you avoid the cloak and are fortunate as a result.

My guess is that just about all of us are tested by difficulties in life, so maybe the difficulties that the author is referring to are more extreme than those I feel like I’ve faced. Maybe this is just my own interpretation, shaped by my life experience. I do think that the manner in which difficulties in life are handled could possibly either cause that cloak to land on one’s shoulders or dodged, rejected and discarded.

This also brings to mind the series of paintings by Thomas Cole, called the Journey of Life. When I lived in DC, I tried to get to this exhibit at the National Gallery of Art on or close to my birthday each year. I really enjoyed when the paintings were displayed in their own small hexagonal room, each on a separate wall. They may still be, as it’s been a while since I’ve visited them.

Somewhere along way, I found myself relating less to the Youth and more to the Manhood painting and starting to think about the Old Age painting in the series. Manhood shows the subject of the series in a boat, approaching some rough waters. Old Age show the subject emerging into calmer waters. My sense is that most of us pass through these stages at different times in life and through differing levels of intensity. We may pass back and forth through them multiple times. Maybe it’s the intensity and/or the number of times each of us passes through this stage that could result in the “…more serious wise…” referred to by Andrew.

I thought by now I’d come to a nice conclusion to tightly wrap up these thoughts. I haven’t and I guess because the goal of this blog is to just roll with it, I don’t have to! One thing I’m pretty sure of is that I’ll continue to think and write about this as time progresses. I guess what I’m happy about this year is that while I might consider myself a least a part-time member of the “…more serious wise…” club, I’m not wearing the cloak or if I am, I really don’t mind it, as it seems to fit pretty well.

(BTW, if anyone from Monocole actually reads this, first of all, thanks! I’m flattered, and if you need me to remove the quotes…just drop me a line via Twitter @cjremus…)