192. GROWING OLD

That title might turn off younger readers. Whose growing old? Maybe you just know someone who is growing old. (Reality check: According to the latest science, we are all growing old.) Maybe there is something in this post that is worthy of all ages to read.

This title and subject, Growing Old, were sparked by Maria Popova’s surfacing what Bertrand Russell had to say about how to grow old and what makes a fulfilling life. This post will draw from several sources including me.

Popova quotes Henry Miller on the subject as he contemplated the measure of a life well lived on the precipice of turning 80. “If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical… you’ve got it half licked.”

British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell wrote about this topic in his 81st year. His thoughts were published in his Portraits from Memory and Other Essays.

“Russell places at the heart of a fulfilling life the dissolution of the personal ego into something larger. Drawing on the longstanding allure of rivers as existential metaphors, he writes: ‘Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.

‘An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.

‘The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome.

I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.’”

This CLUE will be posted later, but I am writing it on my 93rd birthday. Yes, I am 93-years-old today and still thinking, writing, and enjoying my life. So, what have I got to say about growing old, since I have had a bit of experience with that? My birthday and Russell cause me to pause, reflect, and scratch out these words.

My experience aligns with Russell’s reflections that as we grow old, our personal egos transition into something larger, our interests become wider and, in some ways, more impersonal, and that I “wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.” I do not agree with all of Russell’s reflections, but with these, I do. Now, what would I like for you to know about what it’s like for me to grow into and beyond #93?

I have been sustained by the love of my wife of 64 years, our five, their four, and their seven, and before that by the empowering love of my parents. I have been blessed with the love and support of many friends and with the work that has kept me creative and challenged.

The purpose thing has been real for me and has kept me energized. Reviewing my decades in many different kinds of relationships, it seems clear to me that my sense of purpose for all of that has been the joy of helping people to stretch to their potential.

I inherited an optimistic worldview and that worldview has worked for me lo these many years. Again, and again, the glass half full metaphor has kept me steady and my rudder in line with a sunrise horizon.

I am a big advocate of dialogue as a way to live in relationships that help those so engaged to push their levels of consciousness up to levels at which there is excitement in discovery and renewable energy from the internal dynamics of synergistic exchanges.

Evolving a worldview that embraces the breadth of the universe, the exciting history of our species, the diversity of humanity, and the common ground of dialogical life has been a life force for my many decades of evolving me.

Finding many avenues for my vocation has expanded my mind, enabled me to earn a living, provide for my family in their early years, and produce with my personal talents a body of work that reflects my purpose, my interests, and my worldview.

My ultimate anchor through it all is the alignment that I feel with the God who loves, who commands us to love and who rewards loving. The presence of this God has rescued me from foolishness, restored my brokenness, and equipped me for better things.

If you have read this to this point, congratulations and now write your own story for growing old, past, present, and future.

Q: What, if anything, in this post made sense to you?

Check out: https://dialogue4us.com.