Equilibrium

Balance and equilibrium are often regarded as synonymous, but I regard balance as more static, equilibrium as dynamic. A rock perched on a pinnacle is balanced. A healthy pond is in equilibrium.

That boulder will not move until something disturbs it. A tightrope walker, on the other hand, maintains equilibrium with constant adjustments or plummets off the wire.

So when we are told to balance our lives, it’s not very useful. Maintaining dynamic social and personal equilibrium is what’s essential. Work, friends, wealth, health, and so – all the usual suspects in constant movement, tension, countertension, and adjustment .

I realize that I’ve exaggerated somewhat. But my point is that whatever one labels it, the condition is fragile and when lost hard to regain. Once that boulder rolls into the valley it would take stupendous and often impossible effort to put it back. As far as a tightrope walker …

We live in a crowded world of homeostasis where we usually take equilibrium for granted. Sometimes that causes us to do rash things with consequences far beyond what we intend with one relatively minor effort. Once equilibrium is destroyed it may never return in the same form. Just review any ongoing ecological or social disaster .

I’m grateful for the massive, seemingly effortless, equilibriums in my own life, and try to be conscious of how fragile they are .

Certainly Flexible

In our teenage years, we become convinced we know everything and are consequently certain we are always right. We may learn more as time goes on, we may change our minds, but we remain just as certain all the time.

Science constantly tries to break this tendency. The worst scientist is one who knows what, how, and why. In many other careers, it is equally important to acquire knowledge, apply it, think out of the box, and flexibly move on to better understanding .

On the other hand, in society and politics, changing one’s mind is a “flip-flop” and a sign of horrible dishonesty. “How can you have deceived me so?” Friends, families, elected representatives are supposed to remain frozen in attitude and belief, as we once thought we knew them .

It’s understandable. After all, the core of a society must be relatively conservative to function at all. We need to believe that lives have fundamental organization. Total chaos is unsustainable .

The only thing worse than an ongoing movement in what we are certain of, is to be frozen at one point until a sudden internal revelation forces us to reject all that we know, start over, and be absolutely certain, once again, that we are right in whatever new belief.

Like most of our leaders .

Aging Sitcom

One of my semi-schizophrenic personalities has always enjoyed viewing my life as an ongoing situational comedy. Sometimes an office nerd, sometimes a “father knows best”, sometimes a secret Van Gogh. Currently, I play the star role as a bumbling senior gradually losing his edge .

Surely it’s helpful to laugh at the minor problems that come with age, rather than raging against the inevitable. Not finding the right word is common with anyone, but frequent as I near eighty. I walk in a room and wonder why I am there. I miss the usual moves in the kitchen. I stumble when I stop paying attention. And I often sit, doing little, not even wanting to do more. All that can only make me smile. Another cute episode .

Fortunately, I’ve been spared real tragedy so far. That will require a different viewpoint, I suppose. Although media long ago learned to twist horror into entertainment . Perhaps my secret selves will be able to do the same .

In the meantime, the laugh track adds spice and softens fear. I regard it as part of the glorious ability to enjoy a constantly changing existence . So I am more forgetful, clumsier, or less ambitious. Hopefully not too dull. Each day, hopefully, to be continued. Not at all ready for the grand finale yet .

Now, exactly where was I? And what was I trying to say?

No matter, chuckle and move along .

Self Limits

The young have sharp genius, grand ambitions, keen senses, and a clear mind. Those of us fortunate enough to age a long time find all the facilities dimming and eroded. We claim to be more experienced and wiser, but (even if true) it is not a great trade-off .

Visual artists generally notice these problems acutely. Sight is not as sharp, arthritis limits actions, muscles tremble. We notice the “decline” in the late works of most of them. Renoir with brushes strapped to his hands, Monet with nearly abstract water lilies, and oh so many who just stopped when they could no longer produce quality work .

But times change. Visual art is less bound to “reality” and any clumsy effort can be advertised as what was planned. I’ve taken a slightly different approach. I am drawing what I see and how I can do, not what anyone else sees and can do . I’m not in competition. My glory is in being unique, including accepting all the limits of being elderly .

Sure, that’s a self-serving rationalization. Pretending to be talented is not the same as being so. But the other thing about being old is that none of that really matters. That is simply a joyous activity filling time with art .

Finding my current limits, and using them as well as possible rather than concealing them or pretending they don’t exist is a kind of fun game. And I happily use it in other areas of life as well

Joy

In my same moments, I simply rejoice in being conscious and aware. A perfect enchanted unity. I reject the artificial division of body and mind, and the still more degraded notion of defining mind as logic. Down that useless path wanders the progress of AI .

We need not celebrate life itself so much as awareness. True awareness, of course, is built on life. An organism that is aware in any sense possesses consciousness. Without running off to deeper metaphysics, I find my own consciousness the ultimate glory of all I am .

Logic, after all, is a barren brittle construct. The joy in solving a puzzle has nothing inherently logical about it. The joy is an awareness of having achieved a solution .

My heresy is to claim that awareness – enabling that joy – requires life, requires a body. Whatever we’ve constructed without life will lack that. No joy. No awareness. No consciousness. Logic will exist, but never the actual exuberance of being .

I have a short “objective” window of existence as measured in years, although my subjective time feels infinite. During that opportunity, I joyfully seize the world and myself in the universe .

I pity those unaware of their own precious gift.

Science has value, as does logic, but that value is hardly logical. Without resort to dry ancient or futuristic metaphysics, I am free to expand into infinity.

New Year

I claim to love living in the Northeast because of the seasons, but the more likely truth is because I grew up here. I do like natural markers of time, such as a noticeable solstice to indicate when winter begins, and the cold weather affecting my usual walks and yard work .

This year has been snowier and much colder than recently. Flu season is immense, and has affected me in spite of vaccination. I sit housebound, almost happily, and rejoice that I live in an era of abundant energy and goods .

I usually enter December wrapping nostalgia around the previous 11 months. At my age if I do not take care the entire past blends into a golden glow, and I quickly forget recent highlights. I accomplish my memory scrapbook with internet cleanups, visits, all the holiday chores and rituals .

And then – January. Looking forward, and during winter but spring is in view. New season tasks popping up already – taxes, travel plans, medical appointments. And a few items – not quite strong nor large enough to be considered resolutions – having to do with lifestyle, hobby, and happiness .

At the moment, however, I look out at snow, cough frequently, and too often say to myself “maybe tomorrow”. I guess concentrating on enjoying each changeable moment is also one of the benefits of very noticeable seasons .

Dreamtime

Sometime in late adolescence I read about the “dreamtime” of Australian Aborigines. Back then, it was presented as an irresponsible immersion in the moment, without regard for the past nor plans for the future. And, from the standpoint of what was still a highly puritan culture, a primitive decadence, hedonistically doing nothing to become better .

Now, as an advancing senior, I find myself also in a perpetual dreamtime. Not particularly hedonistic, but pleasant enough. The past becomes foggier each day, and the future is hardly worth thinking about. But this moment, now, is as wonderful as I wish.

Of course my original perception of ” dreamtime” was wrong. Like all human activities, it was a useful adaptation to a tough environment. More survival than hedonism. And fully sane, given the conditions .

My own dreamtime has a few aspects of that, and although my conditions are more paradisical than harsh, I inhabit the land of cockaigne, where pigs run around pre-cooked with forks stuck in them. Yet each day, even more importantly what I do each moment, is ever more precious. What I did – well, what of it? What will I will do? Forget about it .

No complaints, here at the water hole .

Medical Crazy

Evolutionary nature is cruel and capricious. The only thing that matters in evolution is reproduction. There are lots of complicated ways for a species to achieve that, including various instincts and even altruisms. But an organism that achieves too great a success will overpopulate and die off. Highly successful strategies that worked for millennia can be destroyed in an instant of bad luck as happened to the dinosaurs .

Until recently, although some humans may have dreamed of “threescore and ten”, most adults died by forty, and most children did not become adults. Old women past menopause would have lost all evolutionary reason to exist were it not for the “grandmother theory” that they promoted culture and advantage to their genetically connected tribe .

These days the pampered masses have lost all sense of gratitude for the scientific miracles surrounding them. Most children do not die before becoming adults. Most adults live past forty. Many can extend prime years to eighty and beyond .

Instead it is a litany of how awful things have become. More children with problems (instead of being dead!), more adults with pain and incapacity (ditto!). Everyone thinks they should be a vibrant perfect thirty-five years old forever .

Nature always disagreed, and still does .

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was the first holiday I “gave up” when I moved out of my boyhood home. I was often far away, relatively poor, and the hassle was just too great. Joan never considered it all that wonderful either – as a good Catholic her big holidays are Christmas and Easter .

As we raised our family we attended or occasionally hosted the gathering. Joan did it as a duty. I never enjoyed it much, probably because I always had to work the day after. And to be honest, I’ve had experience with too much alcohol, arguing, and pent up stress from everyone involved .

But this year much subdued. We spent the afternoon at my son’s house with his in-laws and our grandchild. The old folks pretty quiet, often remembering all those now missing. The younger people simply relaxing since they each also had to work the next morning .

Each day now is thanksgiving for me. I cannot believe my luck. I am fully enchanted in my magic bubble. I know it cannot last – but as the moments unfold I remain grateful for each one. I’ve already lived a fulfilled life twice as long as most of those of our ancestors. I’ve used and been treated to miracles unimaginable to them. Any complaints I may have would make them laugh in scorn.

Thus thanks. Giving thanks. Another thanksgiving day.

Age: 11

When I retired in my mid-60s, I spent a little time considering what I wanted to do and how I wanted to live for the next 20 years or so. Surprisingly, the answer came down to existing as I did when eleven years old. Even stripped of nostalgia, that was a golden time . I bestrode the earth as a miniaturized colossus. I thought I knew everything, I was quite independent but freed of all the real cares of supporting myself and daily existence . I had a secure place in my family and the world .

Every day – every instant – was new and exciting. I had no desire to return to nor even remember my past. I fully believed the future would be ever more marvelous. There was always something new and wonderful to explore. I had almost no responsibilities, carefree .

All my senses were magnificent, my body tuned. My mind unafflicted. Even hormones still well under control. Energy limitless, sleep effortless. A perfect animal supporting a pristine consciousness .

Thus my desire to do all I could to return to such an existence. Much as living in the garden of Eden, an earthly paradise. Forget about what I could not control, enjoy each moment, assume the future is unknowable.

Out of control. Loving every minute .