My generation

I am a member in ‘Stumble-upon’ (a program like ‘My Space’).In it a lady wrote that

” Few people who reach her age (meaning me) have such great spirit & wisdom”

This is flattering, but at the same time, rather unhealthy; It may make my head swell and I may become bigger than my boots. However, what she wrote made me think and analyse:

people my age have accumulated a lot of experience and a lot of wisdom.This is how nature meant it to be. So why is this not the norm? I pondered.

Then I realized, and leaving out all other contributing factures, that even though today’s society has freed us from restrictive ‘excepted behaviour’ on the one hand, it has, on the other hand, thrown us out of the normal cycle of life.

Forced retirement, the disappearance of the traditional 3 level generation family, and the elevation of the young onto a high pedestal they did not earn, made most of us redundant and superfluous; thus bringing debilitating situation to many of my generation

This forced retirement and all that came in its wake has, of course, cost society all that accumulated experience and wisdom to the detriment of all.

Even though many of my generation are in that sad situation, others have taken that new freedom and emersed themselves into activities they otherwise would not have had the opportunity to delve into; and that, in all fields of endeavour: in charity, in public services, in the arts, or in adventures. As for example, an acquaintance of ours who, some years ago and over 80 at the time, still climbed regularly up the tall mast of his very large boat to carry out its maintenance. Not only that, but once his broken leg mended, after falling off that mast at that age, he continued skiing and, continued living on board as nothing has happened.A couple of years or so later, he sold his boat, and – began writing his 4^th book!

Why have some ended one way and others the other? I asked myself.

Why are we where we are today? I asked my husband, and he relied,

‘It’s because we are active’.

His reply was not what I was looking for. I was looking for a primary reason. For the motiving force, or the lack of it. But for him, the conversation added. He gave me his answer.

Now it was up to me to sort it out all on my own.

I think, that what happens to one, comes first and foremost from the core of that individual and from its very personal circumstances and surrounds, so where am I?What is the core that brought me to where I am?

My first conclusion was that life is for living. What I mean to say is that while one is alive, one must live life to the fullest.One must experience everything, or nearly everything; and one must live a long and fruitful life to achieve this. As for me, I think that another 50 to 60 years will be sufficient for all I have set up to do, achieve, experience and… and… and…

And of course there are always new things coming up, which I cannot time, but which I cannot let pass me by either, like for example – SU…

So what is my core being, what makes me what and who I am and what I think?

The conclusion I came to is that I have kept my child like curiosity. That I think - is the REAL key! This is the core of my being and of those like me.

Some may say,

It’s all good and fine for you; you have a child like curiosity, you are well, you are healthy. You had an easy life, you had a privileged one; not everyone is like you…and so on.

So let me put those ones at rest.I did not have an easy life; neither a privileged one, as those of you who read my book, will attest. What I did have, and still do, is the joy in life – the delight in living, and wonder and satisfaction it brings, with all its variations:The good, the difficult and bad - or maybe not the bad:

The good because it’s good;

The difficult for it’s a challenge;

And the bad – for the experience it brings and the opportunity it presents to learn, grow and develop.

Okay, but how do you keep body and mind active to satisfy that curiosity?

I think one achieves this by the attitude one has towards life at large. For example, if I would indulge drinking the wrong drinks, eating the wrong foods, and look at life as a drag – I have no chance of getting anywhere.If I love medicines and do not read the labels in the supermarkets to avoid at least some of the poisons the food industry dishes out for us to eat – I have no hope either.If I give myself a short span of life, and repeatedly say that I will not live longer than a certain age, I will not make it past that date or somewhere around it. Why? Because I will set the way I live in such a way, that it will come to conclusion at around the time I wished it to end.

Renate Artist, poet & the Author of From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country

http://www.promisedland-renate.com/

As a follow-up I’d like to try and tackle, in one of my next posts, the question of marriage and divorce, which has an important bearing on the joy of life. A subject Oprah spoke about with passion a few months back.