“I am luminous with age...” Meridel Le Sueur, at ninety-six.
The problem with aging is that most of my attention was focused on paying for medicines, obsessing about health, and preparing for infirmity and death.
My belief about aging is different and out of sync with our culture. There is no particular reason to listen to me, and I don’t believe in telling others what to do.
This has put me at odds with countless broken people on what we call social media.
I focus not on how I look and seem to others, how much money I have to give to greedy and uncaring corporations, or what outrage the latest corrupt politician is committing, but on how I look at life.
Age is when I began to come to terms with myself, and it has little to do with insurance companies and pandering politicians. It has nothing to do with what I was taught.
I worry more about my strength in spirit than the strength in my arms. Doctors never want to talk about the soul, only the pain and worry.
In my life, middle-age is when I came to power, like many people.
I was a journalist and best-selling author in good health and a TV news producer; I had a movie made about my life, and I always had work, was in charge of hundreds of people at times, and was the father of a beautiful child and the husband of a respected journalist. I had no trouble paying my mortgage or my bills.
Death was much too remote to contemplate; I had mountains to climb.
Rather suddenly, it seemed, and quietly, I was permanently dismissed by the influential people in the world. I was no longer one of them, and they no longer had interest in me.
This is not bitterness or regret for me; it is life, and I knew it was coming, even as the power I had amassed and the security were taken away.
When my book sales dropped, I was dropped right alongside the take. This is the way it works in America. I was not surprised. I am not interested in being pitied. There is no reason for that.
I remember telling myself that I had to find in myself whatever it was that gave me a meaningful and rewarding place in the world. I was not going to fade away into the night. I saw that I needed nature and animals and bought a farm to have both.
My desire for this was naive but genuine. I didn’t know how good a decision it was until later. I deeply regret the pain this caused my family.
Nothing good in the world is free.
I changed the way I saw my life. I started a blog against all good advice and have found it my spiritual and creative home for nearly two decades. I sought to find love in the world.
If the power is gone for good, I now have my place and meaning again, and I don’t miss or mourn anything I lost.
I respect the need and right of younger people to take over and take responsibility for their world. I focus on quiet, silence, compassion, love, and truth. It works for me; it makes me happy.
I opened myself up to true love and went to work, learning from my mistakes and embracing spirituality as a direction. I found a partner I had never dreamt of finding.
That has worked for me, also. I no longer believe in absolutes.
I am far less dogmatic, judgemental, and ambitious than before. I will always work to improve myself, but I am pleased with my progress if I don’t get arrogant and complacent about myself anymore.
So far, so good. I am luminous with age.
I see life differently now. Not long ago, I considered my life a competition for money, status, and material things. As our society teaches, I measured myself by the success and wealth of others. Some people know better. I didn’t.
I began thinking about how much money I would need to end my life comfortably – two or three million dollars was the answer I got from the people who prey on the aging.
So, I had a choice to make.
I came to understand – this is just me speaking – that life is something to value for itself, not just for money or the illusion of safety. I know a Mansion resident who had $1.5 million in his bank to prepare for retirement.
One serious illness wiped it all out in a couple of months. His social security is all he has left. He is sorry he wasted his life worrying more about its end than the present.
Whenever I worry about money, I hear him telling me his story.
The insurance companies don’t even accept long-term care insurance any longer. Nobody who needs it can afford it.
To me, the tragedy of life is not losing all that money – when I cracked up, I gave almost all of it away- but understanding that there are so many people – most of the world – for whom even having enough to live on is beyond them, this as the number of billionaires soars.
Do billionaires need more money to live while most people in this country have less and less? How big can a billionaire’s yacht get? How swollen with money will the 10 percent get? What is enough for them?
I’ve gotten more compassionate in my life, not because I believe in God, but because the God we used to think of was compassionate.
That struck me as the right idea, even if so many religious people have rejected compassion and poverty as a racket enabled by false samaritans.
I’m no saint or Mother Teresa, but it gradually occurred to me that the least I could do in life is to try to help the people who have it worse than I do, those who lack the resources even to start bettering themselves.
There are more, not less, of them than ever.
I have no chance or illusion of saving the world. Just a few people here and there will do. I am hoping it can be contagious.
That’s not my whole life, but it is a critical part of it now, giving me more satisfaction and fulfillment than ever.
It was the idea of death and my awareness of it getting closer that woke me up and called me to a life beyond greed, worry, ambition, jealousy, and resentment.
Death reminded me to live while I could, not fear while I hung on.
My religious friends take comfort in the idea that death, when it comes, is just a prelude. “God is waiting for me,” a dying woman in hospice told me once.,”I am eager to be with him.” She said that knowing there is a God is enough for her.
It’s not enough for me, not yet.
I see death not as my eternal salvation but more and more as a gift, the gift of time.
Death calls me to stop and pay attention to the world around me, to the trees and bugs and birds and flowers and dogs and cats, to embrace color and light, and to respect the darkness, to see the world anew, and when I could, take my photos, love my wife, and help my new friends.
All I want is to be a better man today, tomorrow, to the end.
My idea of peace of mind is different. Time is short for all things. I also wish I had a God to pray to, but I love the idea.
The time is now.
The time for me is to reflect not just on what I’ve lost in my life but what I’ve gained, what I want, and what I have left. I won’t waste it anymore. How much is that worth in dollars?
My idea is to live a fuller life, not just a faster or longer one.
I don’t know what’s waiting for me after death.
I want to know what’s waiting for me now.
