Cosmic Grace by Lucky

I have been slowly and surely trying to integrate what I have been learning, since I started paying attention to this process of aging. It has been enormously gratifying to have discovered, via the literature, and through direct experience with other older people, that there is a lot of benefits that come with aging. It looks like the key words that seem to best describe the pleasures of aging are; integration and actualization.

 Integration refers to the organic process that stimulates recollection, life review and a deepening sense of self. This seems to incorporate a movement toward inner life, and being instead of doing. Actualization has more to do with fulfillment. Elder happiness seems to emanate from fully becoming oneself, feeling connected with the larger movement of the Universe, and basically aligning self, expression, gifts to others, and spiritual pursuits to one’s highest values. All of this, I’ve found, is really good. I think it represents good news, but what I want to write about is the pattern underneath, the greater news of our existence.

I have been harboring these thoughts for some time. Maybe you have been holding your own thoughts just as long. For me, the time is up. What wants to unfold now, has got me in its grips. Aging has brought me here, and now insists that I honor what is unfolding right along with my wrinkling, greying body. I have written, about this era of life, that magnificence creeps in. To my mind, every bit of Life has that attribute, and so does death.

Death is a favor to us. It is fearsome and nerve-wracking, but not because of what we’ve learned from this culture, but because being included in such an all-encompassing liberation is itself awesome. I’ve come to see, through my own life, and through the lives and deaths of others, that death is nothing more than a return to one’s deepest, most divine self. Some may call it a return to the Ground of Being, the Universe, The Great Mystery, Nothingness, or God, but the words don’t really matter, the pattern seems to indicate that one experiences a recall, a transition back/forward into a larger whole.

This is the greater news for which aging is just a prelude. My partner, Alexandra Hart, first started talking to me about something she was feeling rising in her as she got older. She referred to what she called “essentializing.” This, for her, was the process of giving up the superfluous in favor of the more essential. Simplicity was beginning to replace no longer necessary complexity. Her life was becoming more focused. In my sense, she was participating consciously in her own death; in other words, she was ripening, becoming her juicier self.

As time went on, and as we observed and talked about it more, it became apparent to us that some kind of paradox was unfolding within us, and within others we were seeing. We were declining, like many old folks, and we were becoming more. We soon came to refer to this paradoxical movement as “reduction.’’ Xan likes to cook, so we took a metaphor from cooking that captured the complicated advance that occurred, as people, as we, became less. We were being reduced like the ingredients of a good sauce and in the process our essential nature was being drawn out of us, and we were becoming richer, more complex, and flavorful.

Even later as I was reflecting upon death for a piece of writing I was doing, I suddenly realized I had been reduced before. I also realized that in those same moments I had grown closer to my full stature. Parts of me had passed away, died, so that I could become more fully myself. Death began to look like something else to me, something more mysterious and benign than I had been lead to believe. I began to consider old age as a time of honing, of becoming, and death as a time of actualization.

By and large, when I look around, I see a culture that is pretty death-phobic. It makes sense to me, that if people have no way to see the underlying beauty of death, the way it draws out of us what is most essential and idiosyncratic about our nature’s, then this natural part of Life would be fearful. Therefore, I consider it great news, the realization that death may not be more than reduction par excellence!

I am not naïve enough to believe that even shouting this news from the rooftops will convince anyone. That is part of why I wouldn’t utter these words before this. I, probably wasn’t mature enough, to handle a world that went right on fearing death. Today however, I know that change will only follow personal realization. So, I simply invite you to consider your own life, and view the times you have experienced reduction (through broken plans, relationships, careers, deaths, illnesses), and been re-made as more than you were. I would say that through those experiences you died, you went beyond yourself, and became more yourself.

This realization contributes a lot to the happiness of my life. I have died in that way several times already. And, in some mysterious, unplanned way, I have become so much more essentially me. Life re-made me. I’ve done a lot of therapy, become a therapist, done a lot of spiritual practices, joined spiritual communities, and sought out the latest greatest practices to insure that I was living fully, only to find that Life had my back, and was growing me even better than I was growing myself. Death is an installment of grace that I probably would not choose (at least in cultural terms), but Life in its compassion and wisdom has chosen for me. In the end, death is a favor. 

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For more pieces like this, go to www.elderssalon.blogspot.com (2010 thru 2013) and http://www.elderssalon2.blogspot.com  (2014 on)

To hear archived versions of our radio program Growing An Elder Culture go to www.elderculture.com

To read excerpts, or otherwise learn, about Embracing Life: Toward A Psychology of Interdependence go to http://www.davidgoff.net

Deficit-Thinking by Lucky

Aging has changed me, in many ways, mostly for the good. I have a lot to be thankful for. I have been reflecting lately on some of the changes that have come on me, more or less unbidden, as I have matured. I am always amazed by the recognition that many of the changes that have made my life happier, seem to have come about naturally, they just happened as I got older. It seems to me, that Life has built into the aging process some wonderful new capacities that make my life so much richer, with meaning, relationship and overall connection.

Anyway, yesterday I identified another aspect of the most surprising twist in my path. I want to share my reflections upon this big change, not because I think you should try to emulate it, but because I wonder if this is a general part of the ageing process, or just mine?

I noticed a time when I started to talk to myself differently. This happened before I began to realize I was getting older, and starting to enter the final phase of this life. I had already been confined to the wheelchair, and one day instead of getting mad at myself for having such a problem getting dressed, I started to feel compassion for this poor man who was trying so courageously to survive. I began to think about what an effort he was putting forward. And, I noticed I cared. Then I started to regard his efforts with more respect and gratitude. He (I) became someone who’s bravery touched me. For that reason I began to speak with myself in a more kindly way. Somehow, I have entered my latter years with a profound appreciation of all I’ve had to go through, just to be around.

I became fully Lucky just after that. What impresses me, besides the overall attitude change that came over me, was that I also stopped thinking of myself as inadequate. I didn’t do this deliberately. The circumstances of my life hadn’t changed so much,  that I couldn’t make a plausible argument for my on-going inadequacy, but I no longer went down that old rabbit-hole. I had aged, without knowing, out of it.

Along with this massive change in my self-image, came greater acceptance. I also stopped thinking about my own growth and maturity as a necessity, which revealed my inadequacy, and began to view these changes as opportunities. I began to see myself as part of Creation; I was moving forward, not only for my own sake, but because that was how Life proceeded. As I worked to perfect myself, I was also polishing the glow of existence.

A big piece of this alteration, was for me, a shift away, from thinking poorly of myself, always believing the worst, feeling something was wrong with me, to seeing my evolving self in a new light. I went beyond my old habit of doubting myself.  The way I described my self to me changed. Instead of the old familiar deficits, which always made me self-conscious and sure of my inferiority, I saw possibilities. The world, and my inner life, were both transformed. I became excited by what had formerly been my deficits. I was alive in whole new way.

Deficit-thinking has ruled my life. I have always gotten (from myself) the short end of the stick. And now, just now, in this phase of my life, I’m beginning to see that this way of seeing myself was contaminating everything I touched. The easy part has been seeing this change, and coming to terms with the fact that this change has been Life’s doing, not mine. The hard part, is looking at the wake of damage that followed me around. I hurt myself, and I hurt anyone who cared about me.

I had gotten so used to it, that it became (for me) entirely natural. I was inadequate, and it showed wherever I was. I learned, I could fool others, for awhile, but not myself. So, having this belief become something else; has been a big, unexpected deal. Life saw fit to dispose of this false belief, this toxic, compassionless, self-image, and I am more than better off because of it.

A week or so ago, I had an opportunity to facilitate a consciousness-raising experience for some older folks. I asked people to consider and share how they would be, if they were more mature. A lot of honesty came forth. The experience was quite gratifying from that point of view. Along with being touched by the sharing of others, I was struck by how many people talked about what they saw as deficits in their being. This grieved me, because it struck so close to home, and because I know those people, and I have no reason to think any of them are immature, and less than exquisite. Alas, that wasn’t the assumption that I heard.

So, this raises the question for me, is going beyond deficit-thinking a gift of old age in general, or is it just a personal blessing? What do you think? I am of the opinion that it is going to be hard for me to do the world any good, if this attitude about myself doesn’t subside. I’m grateful it has. I’m grateful that Life seems to have planned for this contingency. Maybe, I truly am Lucky, and ageing has meant forgetting what a schlemiel I can be. I’d like to think that it isn’t productive, for Life, to have me believing it capable of making such a mistake. But, how about you, what role (if any) does deficit-thinking play in your life?

  

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For more pieces like this, go to www.elderssalon.blogspot.com (2010 thru 2013) and http://www.elderssalon2.blogspot.com  (2014 on)

To hear archived versions of our radio program Growing An Elder Culture go to www.elderculture.com

To read excerpts, or otherwise learn, about Embracing Life: Toward A Psychology of Interdependence go to http://www.davidgoff.net

Adulthood’s End

When I was an adolescent I was heavy into reading science fiction.  One of my favorite books, at that time, was written by Isaac Asimov and entitled Childhood’s End. Now that I think about it, the ending of the book, which I think represented the end of our species childhood, portrayed new humans, a bunch of teenagers, destroying the Earth, and all living things, with what amounted to superpowers. The book ended with them going on into the Universe. I never quite understood then why that book spoke to me, but here I am, years later, recalling how it accompanied my own childhood’s ending.

The idea that I might look at the period of transition that accompanied my move from adulthood into something else came from Dr. Bill Thomas. He called it the end of adulthood, and I picked up on his thought, and added thoughts of my own. Out of that combination comes Adulthood’s End.

For me, adulthood ended dramatically and clearly in a single surge of blood. I had a hemorrhagic stroke that delivered me into a new post-adult world. For me, being so thoroughly disabled, had the same effect as moving me from the world of the productive and efficient, into a slower world. I am not who I used to be. I had to learn a new value system, and a new way of operating, to be able to survive and occupy a very different life. It has been a difficult transition, it took most of 10 years, and it has resulted in me being happier, and more productive in a community way, than I’ve ever been.

I have reason, because of my own bizarre unaided journey, to think much of the same thing is in store for my age-mates. Adulthood, with its many distorted pursuits, lack of time, and role-bound identity, is ending. The freedom to become oneself, to determine for oneself what that means, is finally, and unbelievably, here. To live anew will likely be hard. Adulthood’s end has been portrayed, by our cultural beliefs, to be the end. So, going beyond this place takes unusual courage, and an almost rabid desire to live fully. Culturally, ageism is heavy, but if those shackles and blinders can be broken, then another phase of Life comes into view. And it happens when adulthood ends.

There are many benefits that come with a new, slower life. The life of the elder is full of surprises. Perhaps, the greatest surprise of all; is that this new life isn’t all about decline. That, is a cultural assertion that is just plain inaccurate, reflecting as it does youth-centered ignorance (the way adulthood is defined).

But, this piece is not about the many pleasant surprises that come with ageing, it is rather an attempt to focus attention upon the difficult period when adulthood ends. Human life has (at least) three stages. The one at the end is even more valuable than the one at the beginning. Integration takes place then, and a human being then manifests its full potential. But getting there is now very hard. There really isn’t a meaningful and truly productive finishing school for more-than-adults. There isn’t a term for the potency of this stage, a potency that carries real knowledge of how important and beneficial this period is, for individual and society. Adulthood’s end could be cause for celebration. Retirement parties are sad reminders of the waste that is endemic now. Adulthood’s end marks a new beginning that overflows with meaning, relationship, awareness and spiritual profundity. It is a time of ripening, of fullness, of completion, of wisdom, when possibilities are actualized.

Adulthood never ends in this culture, instead one just drops off the edge of the world, it is supposed that one greys and wrinkles into oblivion. The image of oblivion, that accompanies ageing, reflects the obliviousness that runs rampant in our immature culture.  

Adulthood’s end is difficult to face. As are most of the stage-changes that come with Life, but it is made even more difficult, for some impossible, by our societal unwillingness to face it. Think about that, next time you hear of the anti-aging benefits of some cosmetic. Adulthood’s end can be delayed, even ignored entirely, if the culture as a whole (or sufficiently) is willing to stick its head in the sand.

Bill Thomas talks about the iron law. Each day, no matter what, we wake up a day older than we used to be. There is an inevitability, to the way things are. Time waits for no one. Adulthood ends. The stage beyond it; isn’t all about economic activity, but it has a value that isn’t widely valued today. The transition can be difficult, and is being made more difficult all the time, but it is important to know adulthood ends anyway.

Adulthood’s end just might be the place where a real beginning resides.

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For more pieces like this, go to www.elderssalon.blogspot.com (2010 thru 2013) and http://www.elderssalon2.blogspot.com  (2014 on)

To hear archived versions of our radio program Growing An Elder Culture go to www.elderculture.com

To read excerpts, or otherwise learn, about Embracing Life: Toward A Psychology of Interdependence go to http://www.davidgoff.net