Category: aging

Don’t Worry

In 1971 I lived in a Berkeley commune. Posted on our refrigerator door was a newspaper picture of a smiling guru with the caption “Don’t worry, be happy”. We later learned he had committed suicide .

The possibly apocryphal story was savored by those who laughed at “hippy stupidity”. All of us found it ironic. As the years go by I think on it periodically (and may even have written about it more than once – my memory isn’t the best lately.) Each time it seems to have a somewhat different moral. 

For example, to begin with, it’s not actually a bad philosophy. Most of us do worry too much about things that will never happen or over which we have no control nor influence. Then, there is a realization that any guidance may be appropriate at one time, but useless or toxic in different circumstances. And finally the question of how one reacts when core ideals are broken.

But I always cycle back to how I feel. And there I realize that the old news clipping is simply another odd fragment of my infinite consciousness, to be used or discarded or ignored as I see fit. Sometimes surfacing for no reason at all. Usually provoking thoughtfulness .

For right now, I try to immerse in “Don’t worry”. I nurture the grand enchantment of being happy. Certainly not a guru, but good enough for today .

Tranquility

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.