A Pee Break by Lucky

I have been witnessing a miracle, something simultaneously ordinary and wondrous. I don’t know if I can capture what is so special about this occurrence with words, perhaps you have to be there, but I’m going to try, because we all deserve to know such a thing remains possible no matter how poor, sick and hopeless any of us might get. I know I benefit every time I just feel what I know — because I have been exposed to this occurrence. And to think — I might have thought something else — had I had only the image in my head to go with. I hope I can express it well enough so that you know what I mean.

I have a friend, Charmoon, who has an advanced case of MS, multiple sclerosis. This disease is a progressive condition, which has taken away Charmoon’s ability to move his own limbs, and will eventually take away his life. He lives with 24-hour caretakers, whom he relies completely on.  You would think he would be greatly depressed about his situation, but he isn’t. This isn’t the miracle, though it could be. I’ll get into what touches me so, later, after I’ve described circumstances most of us would fear.

This is a man who cannot move under his own power. He lives totally at the discretion of others. He eats, goes to bed, to the bathroom, answers the phone, has relationships and maintains his own small business, with the help of others. Some he pays (a small amount), and some he doesn’t. His work now primarily involves keeping this edifice of human helpers stable enough to ensure his survival. He is deeply on his own, struggling for his survival, while he is gratefully surrounded. Other able-bodied humans, prone to the distractions of their own complicated human lives, are his body. He lives marginally, constantly on the brink, he knows it, and seldom lets on.

Charmoon is living a kind of nightmarish life. He is living at the behest of some great mystery, and he is alive by virtue of the flawed hearts that keep him somehow going. Yet, he is also living gratefully. While this story isn’t about him, the miracle I am touched by, involves him, and the vulnerability of his life. With luck, it will touch you in some way similar to how it touches me.

Occasionally, Charmoon has to do— what we all have to do — pee. This sometimes happens when I am visiting with him. Then, because he needs help peeing, and I am there to witness what happens between his caretaker and him, I experience something so poignant and ordinary that it sometimes makes me cry tears that are a combination of joy and grief. The miracle takes place somewhere in the interaction of two men, who are old friends, and are now sharing their affection for each other in this extraordinary and most basic of ways.

A window opens, as Tryman, Charmoon’s old friend, prepares Charmoon, and holds the plastic pee bottle to his friend’s penis. Something along with the urine flows. It moves between them. Ostensibly, one man is caring of another. But, with these two, something more is taking place. The miracle of this moment is the open hearts, the caring that is going back and forth, the tenderness that is passing between them.

One man isn’t merely caring for another. That would be touching! Rather, what is happening here, is that both men are feeling their mortality, their shared vulnerability, their long-time mutual regard, and opening to each other. The caretaker is receiving care. The caretaken is giving, as well as receiving. Love, for each other, for this extraordinary and so basic life, for the Mystery that makes it all happen, goes back and forth. In that movement, for a brief time, each of us is woven together into a palpable something we cannot name as simply as unity, but we know we have shared something.

The peeing stops, but the flow doesn’t. Tryman covers Charmoon again, a few words are exchanged, maybe the familiarity of male humor returns, and the moment passes. But something indelible remains. Words can’t capture it, the sure camaraderie of friendship returns, but somehow, mixed in with it all, invisible as our breaths, there is something we each know joins us, though we cannot ever believe ourselves capable of swimming in that great expanse.

The ordinary resumes. The on-going and fatiguing scramble for some kind of survival goes on. Charmoon rests, or talks to another potential caregiver, or plans who he needs to make it through another day. There is no time to acknowledge the ineffable that just happened. There are too many hurdles to surmount.

We’ve wondered together whether we are somehow blessed. Being disabled, and having to rely on others the way we do, taking little for granted, we are so screwed up that we get to notice these little moments, when the world becomes something else, a place where love and resonance sometimes are evident. This realization is a great joy, which almost seems to make hell a blessed place.

Try to remember this little miracle — is this hell/heaven/or both?

All I know is that despite our differences, we are all alike, having to break to pee.

A Dilemma Story by Lucky

Every now and then I get an urge.  This is one of those times. I have been thinking about something for a couple of months now, and I want to explore this thought more. Usually I would do this kind of inquiry in my journal, but the subject of this thought is so unusual and social that I feel it would be better to explore it publicly. You see, what I want to explore, is a kind of story that was designed by indigenous people to look collectively at difficult moral and social issues. The story–form is called the dilemma story, it was invented in Africa to get groups of people (in their case communities) sharing with each other their best thinking about the thorny issues that haunted them.

I think we, as a species, are in a similar situation. I have this idea that we know (collectively) what we need to know to overcome what threatens us, but we are having some difficulty talking, in any real way, about it. I’ll pose what I see of the threat in a moment, but I want to say more about dilemma stories, and why I think they could be useful to us.

A dilemma story always ends with a question. There is no moral or answer. It represents no particular ideology, or worldview. It is highly unsatisfactory to the part of us that wants a clear, concise solution. Dilemma stories are designed to pose true dilemmas that have no correct solution, but vex us anyway. They ask us to put our heads and hearts together and see if “we” can put our collective arms around something that challenges all of us, they ask us to share the best of ourselves to come up with some things that could help us all.

As a psychologist, with a developmental orientation, I have been aware for some time that different stages in the growth course of the typical human being have different perspectives on life. These stages are invisible, inevitable and troublesome. People at different stages, talk with each other, using the same language, and assume they mean the same thing. They don’t.  This phenomenon, which I call the Babel Effect, leads to a lot of misunderstanding, confusion, heartache, mistrust, and social gridlock. The dilemma story, by virtue of having no right answer, bypasses this problem. It invites out the truest insights of everyone. In that way dilemma stories are trans-developmental, that is, they provide a means of getting to the wisdom present in any group.

For these reasons I have begun to think that dilemma stories might offer us, human kind, a way to approach a difficult topic and share the accumulated wisdom present. It seems to me that discussions, shared explorations, which don’t happen very often, could help. I know action speaks louder than words, but words are powerful, and can lead to unified actions. I suspect a course correction lies ahead. We are already in an era that is challenging.  I have the idea that the more methods we have for sharing the best thought available in the collective mind, the greater likelihood there is of responding to challenge wisely.

I’ve set for myself the task of writing a dilemma story for our times. I’m having a hard time with this task however. I am afraid the story exceeds my writing capacity. I’ve only come up with the opening. “Once upon a time a person was born into an unbelievable world at an incredible time.” I think I know the course of the story, but I haven’t yet found the words for it. The dilemma is clear to me. We, as a species, have come to a place with ourselves, and each other, where we are realizing that we pose a great danger to ourselves, each other, and this our only home. We are up against ourselves, and our on creations.

That is the situation, but it isn’t the dilemma, the real wonderment that haunts me. The question that beguiles me, isn’t how to stop the situation, which may or may not be inevitable, but how to live with a knowing of this challenge. For me, at the moment, the dilemma is, what form of consciousness best serves in an age like this? I can feel the uneasiness, the grief, frustration, uncertainty, anger and dismay. I am also touched by the poignancy, hope, desire, wonder and determination. I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t think anyone does. But, I can feel the depth of the uncertainty, the unlikelihood of it all, the vulnerability of the times, the looming of a storm-surge of change.

I find myself longing for it and fearing it. I find myself desiring to meet this change, this wave of Creation, with as much alignment as is possible. I also want to run away. But, in my best times, I stop eating chocolate, and wonder how? Is it enough to be open, to engage in what I presume to be the changes to come, to prepare for death, to grieve for all that is passing, to praise all that is, to live with a sense of how precious and unlikely it all is? I don’t know. What I do know is that I have a great desire to be as prepared as possible, not for protections sake, but to serve. The dilemma story, a kind of ancestral shared inquiry, appeals to me now. It seems to offer a way we can help each other face what we know is coming.

Finally, I think I am drawn to the dilemma story because it is truthful. This life, with all of its fragility hangs upon the thread of our choices. We are confronted, like any mortal animal with our own death (our own lives), and we are conscious that Life asks something of us (while we are here), and we wonder. Is any of this life, this planet, these others — is any of it ours? I think not, but we still have a great responsibility, that is our dilemma, at least to me, and that is why the dilemma story compels me like it does.

Grief and Praise by Lucky

Below is an old indigenous story I know. It expresses something fundamental. I open with this story because I have lost my moorings, and I want my sense of balance back.

Once all the creatures in the world gathered in a great council to clarify the jobs they each perform in the service of Creation. One by one they step forward. The beaver is here to look after the wetlands and to monitor how the streams flow. The worm is here to burrow through the earth so that the roots of plants may find air and nutrients. The deer is here to slip through the woodlands, to watch what is happening.

The council is progressing well — but one poor creature stands away from the fire, in the shadows, uncertain of its role. This is the human. At last this being steps forward and haltingly addresses the assembly “We are confused. What is the purpose of human beings?” The animals and the plants, the insects and the trees — all are surprised. They laugh, but then the laughter gives way to stunned silence. ”Don’t you know? It’s so obvious!!” “No,” replied the human, “we need you to tell us.” And the other creatures of the world all responded, “Your purpose is to glory in it all. Your job is to praise Creation.”   

I don’t seem to be praise worthy. I am too often preoccupied with my own little worries. I miss the big picture, the reason for my life, because I am elsewhere, living like my life is more important than what is going on around me. I even worry about worrying too much. For good reason it turns out. Life goes on, and I seem to be limping along behind, whining about things not being what I want them to be.

Fortunately, Nature has provided a corrective, not one I like a lot. I’m coming to know this difficulty better, and to respect it a whole lot more. This is grief. There seems to be a relationship between grief and praise. I am learning about this relationship in a somewhat natural way. I am finding that I am experiencing more loss, thus more grief, as I am coming back to life.

I am losing everything and everybody. I have had a few friends die. I know I will have some more. I’ve lost lovers, loved ones, homes, jobs, even my own capabilities. Each of these losses has hurt, sent me spinning, and made me wonder about this thing called Life. And, if I am honest, each has made me a little more grateful for what remains. I don’t like hurting because of these losses. I don’t like knowing that they will continue. But, as the losses mount, I am noticing, each of them pushes me a little further in the direction of really appreciating what is here.

As I grieve the losses I am taking, I am growing my appreciation for the miraculousness of Life. I like this development. I’m just not sure I like the price I’m paying for it.

Grief is opening me up to the real cost of life. The impermanence of everything, the fleeting moment, the embrace that always ends, these are the things I live for, cannot hold, and that make me grateful for my existence. What always evades me, meaning what ultimately passes beyond me, is what I value the most.

I’m learning that losses invigorate my appreciation for life. What I cannot preserve, I value.  When I expose myself to loss I am dragged into a whirlwind of pain that paradoxically enlivens me, and opens my eyes to the incredibly beautiful transience of life. Suddenly loss becomes gain. I am thrust into a landscape that breaks my heart, and simultaneously introduces to the delicate persistence of life.

Lately this has taken the form of letting in a painful reality. If I want real contact, to feel palpably connected, I rely upon others. It grieves me that others are so preoccupied with their own lives. There is nothing wrong. I am just lonelier than I want to be. Because I feel this pain and loss, because I can admit this grief, I am more available for the brief moment of real contact that does come. I am more prepared when I don’t maintain that something is wrong and I grieve what is. I get to feel more connected because I accept being less connected.

Grief at what passes, or is true, or is what I cannot change, makes me appreciate so much more. Feeling my grief, all that I lose, is what frees me to fully praise this existence. It doesn’t matter if I think life is imperfect, if I feel that it asks too much of me, because no matter what, I am being exposed to waterfall of constantly changing sensations that, because of my losses, take on a hue of poignancy and wonder. Grief gives rise to praise, not because I am just right, but because life is.

Knowing this, having it deep in my experiential bones, is my balance point. Balance may move around, may be very shaky, will be dynamic, because I now grasp, that too have balance I have to lose balance.

A Confluence by Lucky

Today, I feel like an old-time explorer. I’m looking for a place others have been to, but that doesn’t appear on any map. I’m not talking about Bolinas, which keeps tearing down its sign, as if hiding changes anything. I’ve heard that there is an intersection of two rivers of energy, that once you behold them, change the way you see live. I know I am searching for something.  I know not what, but I know it is here, that it exists, that it is real, and that it lies at the heart of a confluence, the place where two energies meet.

As an explorer I’ve found what I thought was this confluence many times. I’ve been wrong. I have discovered some new places, but they have all proven to be something beside a true confluence. Maybe I’ll be wrong again. I can only hope my hubristic failures of the past have taught me something. I am an innocent explorer. Yes, I’ve made mistakes (and probably will again). But, I keep going, searching for something that exists both within me and in the world. My innocence is directly proportional to my ignorance, or if you prefer, to my unknowingness.

The confluence I’ve stumbled upon is surprising. I’ve been searching for it everywhere, for as long as I can remember, and here it is, not in some mysterious place, but right in the way of where I have been headed anyway.  I was destined to come here. And yet, if I hadn’t been searching I might never have found it. I can’t explain the paradox of this finding, the discovery I couldn’t help but notice after a life of searching, and an arrival that comes as a surprise. Here, is what I’ve found.

The Transitions movement is one of the rivers of energy. Deep in these rushing waters is an awareness that we as a species have cornered ourselves. Our reliance upon cheap energy, ever-ready resources, and of someone else to pay the price, has pushed us into a spreading crisis. The Transitions movement has come about in response to the dawning awareness that as a species we are about to go through something. This something is poignant and painful because we did this to ourselves, we’ve known we were doing it for a long time, and because we’ve known it will be fatal. We, as the peoples of Earth, are entering an era of deep uncertainty.

Many have talked about this time as a species-wide rite-of-passage. This is a creation, the destruction of life as we’ve known it, which may deliver some of us, someplace beyond adolescence. This may, or may not, be true. The events may unfold differently. But, the longing, the steadfast stubbornness, that has governed the prevailing norms, has seemingly guaranteed this kind of difficult transition. Like my discovery, this moment is fraught with inevitability and surprise.

I am deeply and humbly impressed that another river of energy is flowing into, and meeting, this one. Self-destruction is a pretty powerful river, the fact that it is met, is rather amazing to me. To add to the rather mind-blowing nature of this confluence is not just that I am discovering this, but that I am a part of it. What, on earth, am I talking about?

There is another river of energy that meets the self-destructive tendencies that seem to have doomed humankind. I am talking about elders and elder wisdom. By virtue of increased life-expectancy there are more old people, both as a percentage of the population, and in sheer numbers, than ever before. This is historical, and maybe well-timed. Here is why I think so.

Elders, as opposed to merely old folks, have been through something. They have been killed off by loss in a way that has made them again, and given them perspective. Just as we as a species are being confronted by our own limitations, we re-discover that this process (being limited) has been going on, beneath the cultural radar, for a long time. There are those who have spent time suffering with the losses of that could inform us now.

And, what do they have to say? How could this confluence be meaningful? Elders have a kind of accumulated wisdom, a particular wisdom about resilience. This isn’t the kind of knowledge you’ll find in books, articles or lectures. It is about surviving, about being changeable and unchanging in the face of change, about what really matters. This wisdom isn’t written down in a book somewhere, it is too precious and ephemeral for that, it is only, and primarily, available through relationship.

The river of elder wisdom runs deep beneath the surface and meets the destructive force of the river of self, and environmental, neglect we have unleashed. Elders know the awakening that attends awareness of a life of poor choices. They know something about being boxed in by themselves. They know the transforming power that comes with humble submission to what is. They know something of the perspective needed to endure. Theirs is a hard-earned wisdom, a wisdom that could be meaningful now, that could be timely, that could help us find a way to ripen through this time of hardship.

What makes this a stupendous discovery, at least for me, is the fact that I am one of them, the older folks that is. I have to laugh when I realize that my personal happiness, actualization of my self, and the potentially subversive antidote to what ails us culturally, all intersect. This is the confluence of my dreams, and a great moment to be alive. The challenges are great, the stakes high, and now being a new kind of human matters. And, surprisingly, as I am growing older, elder wisdom is needed like never before.

At The Edge — by Lucky

Here I am again, out on a cornice, overlooking the Abyss, feeling a kind of vertigo. I’m not here by choice, but it takes some part of me to stay here and look. I am done away with by the spectacle that unfolds around and beneath me. For some reason, I get to be a witness.  Is what I see my own folly, or something I can only guess at? My breath is not mine, not here. The Abyss seems to want me here, dizzy and awed. What I behold through the fear, anxiety and awe, is distorted by my own emotion, it is big and indeterminate.

I have been sitting in collapse, trying to live with the realization that the cultural house of cards is coming apart. I know not everyone is being affected in the same way. And, I know everyone is being affected, some more directly and immediately than others. I can feel this erosive process accelerating. I don’t know how long things that are familiar will last. I don’t know if what I am aware of is going to take 10 years or 100. But, I can feel it happening. I’m sitting here helpless, witnessing this certain demise, feeling emotionally overwhelmed, and struck with awe.

I’ve lived in proximity with the Abyss forever, but I only came to a vivid awareness of it when I had my stroke. Then I got it, that what I thought of as my life, wasn’t mine at all.  I began seeing things differently then, sensing the Abyss, and having my attention altered by Life. That is a long, disorienting story. Its been unfolding over time. Today, the latest version, finds me out on this cornice, trembling, and once again being made seasick by what I see, a roiling soup of potentials, all of which include demise, and some of which include evolution.

I know I should be glad. I am. Some of what I sense is evolution, the way these changes are going to bring forward other aspects of our humanity. But, I’m also horrified to see that all of the paths forward contain demise. In some it ends us, in some it alters us, in some it utterly transforms us. That is the good news. But, the bad news is the amount of pain, and the scale of it, that lies ahead. The good news is that some will be shaped by the pain, and made again in that crucible. The bad news is that all will know the pain.

I am constantly surprised by this life, it seems, that one thing is always joined with an other (or more others). I should know by now. The level of connection, of all things being coupled, is far more than I am used to. So, I should have guessed, and maybe I did abstractly, that demise might be accompanied. Sure, the probability of evolution is increasing, conditions are such that they are coaxing out of us the parts of ourselves that haven’t fit easily into the herd mentality of the mainstream. Diversity is giving us a chance. So is the gauntlet of environmental and deeply human limitations we are going through. Life is painfully teaching us what we need to know, evolving us, changing our nature.

Will we learn to fit in? It is too soon to say. What can be said with some assurance is that right now demise, collapse is happening. Are we learning from it? I’m not sure. I know that sitting here feeling it, directly experiencing the frayed ends, watching people losing functioning, is heart rendering. I know that evolution is messy and uncertain. It is working on us, using our own forms of neglect to help us awaken. I’m impressed by the possibilities implicit in this moment. If it is possible, I have an even clearer image of the pattern of creating through destruction. There is so much that is poignantly passing, and there is so much that is now full of beginningness!

I have long felt, as a disabled person, impoverished by my health and our dysfunctional social safety net, going without health insurance,  that I was living in a house of cards. I have made some peace with the realization that it could all come down some time. The improbability and seeming impossibility of this life has always impressed me. I’m kept from falling into depression by the even more miraculous awareness that despite it all, despite the improbability, we, I, everything exists, shot through with vulnerability, uncertain and here.

I am out on this cornice witnessing our death throes and birth pangs. I can’t make any of it happen. I am not immune to the pain and uncertainty. And, I am grateful for this moment. I am alive and I am witnessing, feeling, creation at work. It looks like the life I’ve known is being taken apart again, and I know it is simultaneously being put together anew.

Going Nowhere Fast — by Lucky

I was sitting in front of the common house, in my wheel chair, in the shade, enjoying the day, when suddenly I was hit by something I didn’t expect. From time to time I sit outside, to get fresh air, to feel nature, and to let myself be assailed by what wants my attention. I didn’t see this one coming though, perhaps I should have, I’m not as oblivious as I seem, but for a period of time, I was taken aback by the realization I was living in a collapsing society.

I’ve been writing the Slow Lane for a long time now. Along the way I’ve realized that even doing something as mundane and simple as taking a nap can be a revolutionary act.  Slowing down, enough to fall asleep, to relax into the moment, to trust the self, is beyond many of us. Even the road to the unconscious is cluttered with cultural detritus such as things to do, people to see, thoughts that press for attention. Thank God, exhaustion sometimes triumphs.

Even with this disabled seat, at the edges of the slow lane, I haven’t let myself stare fully into the abyss. By that I mean, I haven’t really let myself know what I already know. I get jittery just thinking about this. I feel anxious. I worry that if I let myself know, or worse yet, feel, that this cultural edifice is coming down, then I am going to be thought too pessimistic, crazy, or somehow self-indulgent.

Yesterday was even worse. As I sat, the realization came to me, that the predicted collapse is already happening.  All at once I felt so many things. I still am. I felt my shame and dismay. I wanted my daughter to have something else. I knew my own vulnerability, how easily perishable I am, in my little home in the middle of urban sprawl. I knew how deeply unprepared I am. I saw the extent of the denial I live. I wanted to cry, to feel grief, that I, and the human experiment have come to this. My silent longing for a community of companions, suddenly morphed into a family feeling, together, we are confronted by the brink.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need more books, or articles, movies and lectures about Peak Oil, economic disaster, or climate change. I’m saturated with apocalyptic images of the future. I understand the fear that possible futures generate. I’m afraid too. The present however, is enough to kick my ass. Yesterday, I grasped that the future is here and now. Collapse is happening! If not for me, right now, for those without jobs, homes, health, income, food, friends, family. Poverty, the third world, and all the ignominious ways that we let each other suffer, assail me now. I can’t walk away — there is no place to go.

So, in this moment, I’m just sitting with it, in it, feeling all that it asks of me. Strange, I know what I see is devastating, yet I’m still here, in the midst of this unfolding horror. I want to do something about it — but, I can’t. I’m too disabled. But, I am Lucky. I can sit right in the middle of it, doing nothing, just letting it sink in.

I’m sitting in collapse, the cultural world I have known doesn’t work, the end of an era is here. I know, I don’t want to argue about it, the whole edifice hasn’t come down yet. For some people it is working, there is very little change, maybe even an imagined future, the prospect of positive change. Maybe some unforeseen development will save us. I don’t know. I’m not predicting anything. But, I am aware of something. And, what I’m aware of, is that what is, already carries all the seeds that disturb me.

I think I have got to learn to live as if collapse is already taking place. What does that mean?

I’ve been blessed enough, by my life-threatening ailment, to know death exists. Knowing the surety of my own death has made me stronger, this awareness has helped me get clear about who I am. Maybe living with collapse could do the same. Suddenly, like Lazarus raised from the crypt, I might appreciate, more completely, the life I have. I imagine I might live differently, if I felt the presence of collapse, like I have come to feel death is a part of life. I know that my awareness of the miracle of this existence depends upon my ability to let if I let collapse in. Collapse is already happening.

I am sitting now. That is about all I can do. As I’m sitting, it is sinking in. I am in the circle. The end and the beginning are both here. Collapse, which scares the hell out of me, is part of wholeness (not my favorite part). I don’t want to accept it. I think a lot of the busy-ness and rushing I see everywhere around me are other’s refusal to accept it. But, I don’t know that. Still, collapse exists, and is part of the circle, an expression of wholeness. I want to run away. But, I can’t run, and there is no place, outside the circle, to go. So, I’m sitting, doing the most I can, letting it sink in. Collapse is here.

Age and Happiness — by Lucky

There have been reports, lately, from researchers who have been studying happiness, that people are happier as they get older. This development is consistent with my experience. It is good news. Something is happening, according to those who study happiness over the life-span, that makes people much more pleased to be alive as they get older. Why?

Oh, not for the reasons that are commonly thought, but because aging sometimes brings with it the chance to actualize a life-long project — that is, to become your self, to take possession of what makes you unique. This thrilling development comes with longevity, and makes aging, coming to ourselves, something, unique and potentially powerful.

Why does this matter; to me, to any old person, to our culture? It is too simple to say this matters because, as far as we know, it has never happened before. This is a first time in the history of our species! And that means that we have no idea about what this development means. This whole thing, happiness included, is up in the air. Knowing that, and getting older at this time, has drawn my attention. It has also motivated me. I’m part of, like it or not, the baby boom generation.  It isn’t in my blood to sit around and have someone define for me the meaning of this gift of longer life.

There are plenty of reasons why happiness might grow in this stage of life. On the opposite end of the spectrum from that dirty word “retirement,” lies an opportunity for a new, more self-defined, life, a chance to re-create your self. Theory has it that old people are used up, finished, too tired, to have much of a life. As recently as our father’s generation people had the good sense to die shortly after retirement. That isn’t the case much anymore. And, that change, people living longer, has just now come on the scene. In 1970 a person reaching the age of 65 had only a 14% chance of reaching 85. Now almost half of us who reach 65 can expect to live, healthily, to 85 and beyond. We have almost 20 additional years no one has had, or been able to, look forward to before.

Happiness grows with age. That makes sense. Rules, roles, cultural assumptions, family expectations all have diminishing impact. But, happiness can be surprising too. Work no longer provides a structure of meaning. This is a loss, it can be confusing and disorienting, out of mastery comes the Mystery of emptiness. The tides change. People experience the bitter, but enlightening, gall of diminishment. With aging comes loss. How then can this be one of the happiest times of life?

It is, precisely because of the losses that we are dealt. Diminishment, becoming less of who we were, leads to enlargement, becoming more of who we want to be. How can this be? There is a reversal here that is totally unexpected. The pain of loss; the losing of wealth, health, prestige, comfort, abilities, friends, loved ones, family members, adds up, and increases appreciation for the gift of life. As life is pared away, the truly old dies off leaving what is essential, a being cleansed of superficialities. One, happily, gets to choose again. The extra years, can mean for many, a new and more satisfying life.

Happiness researchers explain the uptick in satisfaction in old age by extolling the virtues of greater health, longer lives, increased selectivity about time usage, the easing of responsibilities, and deepening relationships. I see it slightly differently. For me, increasing age means the possibility of increased self-possession. External factors do change, as the researchers notice and report, but internal factors change too. To my way of thinking, these internal factors go a lot further to explain happiness than the external changes.

Responsibilities change. There is increased selectivity, a better use of time, not because of getting older, but because getting older means becoming more my self. I have new responsibilities that mean more to me than the old responsibilities. I use my limited time more carefully. I am more selective because I have more choices than I once did. I am, as an aspect of getting older, more at home in my own skin. This is the real source of my increasing happiness.

Obviously that means a lot to me. I’ve worked hard to become, and hold onto, my self. I think that what is happening for me, is possible for everyone else. I’ve seen it, in my self and others, aging can mean being free to be one’s self. What a surprising turn of events!  This seems like a watershed moment when society, culture, anyone could age into a greater maturity. I don’t know about you, but for me aging is suddenly something I don’t want to miss, and that makes me happy.