Ageing - Living - Dying

My grandmother recently got admitted to an elderly care institution. She is rapidly increasing her memory loss. Dementia. Returning back to being a child. The curious case of Benjamin Button is maybe not that curious after all... The blank look in her eyes so often reminds me of that of a small child totally challenged by the grown up world. The mind searches through its archives for references.

Do we live life in reverse? Is the end the preparation for the beginning. The database in the child has been wiped clear. The very young child may still get these hints of 'I should know this...' or 'This is oddly familiar,' but it can perhaps not access the information. The same look I see in my grandmother's eyes. 'I should know the answer to that question...' But it is lost. Her hard-drive is being gradually cleared.

I wonder about all the people where that process does not happen.

I wonder if those who enter the world kicking and screaming also left it that way.

I always used to think I would like to die in my sleep. The fear of pain being the main reason for wanting to go that way. I have changed my mind on that one. I want to leave with my eyes wide open. I want to be awake. I want to experience every iota of this incredible transition. I imagine it to be something I can not begin to imagine... So I just remain curious...

My mother frequently says now how afraid she is of ageing, or rather of ageing this way. Gradually losing the powers over herself, becoming fragile, senile, maybe a nuisance to the world around her, etc. So I think about this much as well. And it used to scare me too. But now that I witness this process, and since I am not one to settle for living with unresolved fear, I dig until I find freedom, release from the bondage of this fear.

What is it she is really afraid of? The loss of herself. The loss of her identity, her personality, her sense of self and the world she inhabits. And perhaps worst of all that she should be in some way conscious of this loss. We do not know how my grandmother experiences reality. We do not know of how much she is aware within herself. She is sad, she is lonely, and perhaps she is often as utterly disoriented within herself as she is outside.

So this begs the question: who or what are we, or are we not, that we should fear thus?

In the past, and still today in many regions on this globe, generations were born, lived and died under one roof, or at least so close that there always was a close connection between the generations. Growing up, you lived closely to the elderly. You were close when people died. It was all part of the natural cycle of events, and you knew your place within that, naturally. And each age had its value to the community, or the family. Those not able to work and provide were able to look after the household, or the children, or the livestock perhaps.

I am 34 and come from a pretty average European family. I have seen a baby's dipers being changed a maximum of two times in my life. I have not been around children at all for most of my life since I have left childhood. I have equally not been around the elderly, including my grandparents, since I have lived on a different continent to them most of my life.

Yet, I have seen enough to not fear life.

Since the age of 13 I have pondered death and dying. I turned away from life and living to unlock this mystery. At least arrive at a point of understanding, a point of peace with the entire dying thing. I always knew that that would be the only way I would be able to live in some meaningful way. More than 20 years have passed... Am I any wiser for all that time and all that pondering? Doubtful. But I am more at peace. A lot more.

Ageing, as everything else, is a part of life.

But I come from a culture that identifies itself with the body. The physical form is primarily who you are. You then have a soul, or whatever, maybe, but the main focus is on the external form. That is who you are.

So any changes that happen to that external form are changes that happen to “me.” But there is the inner, eternal, changeless you. Even if you do not “believe” that way, and do identify with the flesh, you will still agree that there is an inner person, an inner way of feeling yourself, that is quite independent of much of the outer form. How many people of 80 feel not a day older than 20? That is the norm. I myself feel no age at all. Never have. I cannot easily take it when people treat children like imbeciles, just because they cannot express themselves in our way yet, or maybe because they happen to act out, or whatever. The form is young, the slate only gradually filled, but inside there still is a timeless, ageless “person.”

Well, we can see this as we like, it is not the point I wish to make. It does, however, serve to illustrate why, when certain changes occur to the form, we are so deeply threatened by those. Much of the western issue with ageing is, of course, part of the times we live in. Part of the externally created hype about being and remaining young, youthful, strong, vital, etc. So the discrepancy with this expectation can cause some consternation. But outside of this, it really is that the inner is not changing as the outer is. I still feel myself at the hight of youth, but my body is crumbling away underneath me, so to speak. Things start to ache, things are forgotten that were just a thought away just yesterday. Other things are strenuous that took no effort at all up until when... The changes creep in, unnoticed at first, and then noticed in stark contrast to the image we hold of ourselves.

I see the helplessness in my grandmother with regards to what is going on. I see the same helplessness in my mother as she sits and tells me of her nightmare vision of “ending up” like that.

Can I take her fear? Can I inspire her with some peace? Can I show her how different the world could look if she viewed herself and life from a different angle?

I can. And I do. But it usually does not last much longer than the conversation. She follows my reasoning up to some point, agrees, but tomorrow we can have the same discussion again. (Early sign of dementia? :-) At least we can joke about it...)

I understand her. I have grown up largely in the world she lives in still. I left it early and went on to explore for myself. And I came up with different conclusions. Different explanations. Different points of view.

As far as I am concerned, I am something that any word I could use in any language would only limit. There is no possible word to do justice to what I am. To what we are. But for the sake of writing about it here I shall use the word soul. So I am (a) soul. I incarnate. I manifest this body - however the technicalities work - but I am here on a journey. A journey through this dimension. A journey through the limitations of this physical reality. I sign up for all the joys and pains that it will bring. Most of them brought about through the forgetting of my true nature.

It is no fault in the system that we forget. It is no fault along the journey that we lose our way. It is all a part of it.

It is a part of this journey that certain things happen to the body. It is good that way. Everything, including all the things we wish would not happen, have their rightful place in existence. They have something of benefit for whoever is involved.

So for me, if it is part of this particular journey of mine that, as I age and grow old, I lose my memory, lose my sense of self, lose my ability to care for myself, etc., than that is what I have come here to experience. And that is not something to fear. Like a role you play on a stage in a play. If you play the cripple, the murderer, the crazy person, or whoever, you do not generally lose sleep over that. In all likelihood you signed up for the part. Or you couldn't get the one you wanted, so this is the next best thing. But you do not forget who you are, thus you go on stage, play your part to the best of your ability, create an illusion for some period of time for those who are watching, and then it is back to the self you know yourself to be.

For me, living in this body, in this world, at this time, is no different. Only I have kind of forgotten who I really am. The more I remember, however, the easier many things get. (There is another side to that coin, and that is that I often fail to see the point in things that mean much to many, and need to remind myself that the point is now for me to choose, to create if you will... Everything is rather transparent, and it makes much of the games we play rather pointless...)

I can move with greater lightness through the kaleidoscope of life. I can observe with some detachment. I will get involved, attached, as everybody else, but again and again I “surface,” and see that I got lost in the play. Perhaps the best actors are those that get lost in the play for the duration of the play. Thus they act with such conviction. For that time they do forget who they are outside the character they are portraying. But they come out of it.

And so do we. Latest at the moment of crossing over to the proverbial “other shore.”

So may these words lend comfort and hope to anyone in need of it.

Blessings from the land of the living.

Ouroborus Lux