In our fortunate era, one can do many things, play many roles, in fact be different persons over time. We recognize standard stages of life – childhood, adolescence, young adult, middle-aged, senior, elder – and the various career changes one can make. But our very being can also transmute .

Tranquility is not a revered goal of our culture. It’s more important to be upset, to strive, to be unsatisfied with what is and work to change things for the better. For most of those stages of life, being tranquil is dangerously close to being a lazy good for nothing .

But elders _ well, little is expected at this declining energies and thoughts. Attempts by old folks to do great things is at best comical and at worst annoying and tragic. Tranquility fits those who otherwise get in the way of progress .

I confess to buying into this somewhat. Ever since I read  Innocents Abroad as a boy, I realized that younger people who accept life however awful it may be are more to be pitied than envied. I hardly ever sought tranquility, preferring even painful activity to doing nothing .

But now? I’m afraid I am still not quite tranquil, although I have slowed, appreciate the moments, and try not to regret all the many things I can no longer do. Such acceptance, I suppose, is close to tranquility. Or laziness, of course.