of being a
newborn again,
to hold hands
and teach the basics
to live anew,
learning to walk
when knees are getting
a bit askew.
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Retirement is a story…
to hold hands
and teach the basics
to live anew,
learning to walk
when knees are getting
a bit askew.
A life well lived
The secret of life well lived
is to realize,
and to be
at peace with,
the impermanence of its
seemingly permanent parts -
hairs imperceptibly
turning gray
feel joints begin to ache
watch skin
slowly fray
or,
visiting Venice
for the one last stay.
Building a framework for living # 5: Working with the fundamental unit that makes a life
When we go for our walks in the woods and look around, the tell tale signs of impermanence are everywhere. The ground is littered with fallen trees big and small. Next to them are also young saplings hoping to survive their first yew years and reach for the piece of sky opened up by the fallen trees.
Walking through the woods we have seen this cycle of birth and death so often that it does not elicit any thoughts or the awareness of impermanence. Almost always, obvious signs of impermanence fail to make its mark on our consciousness.
In the beginning of our own lives, the biological imperative to procreate and propagate our genes to another generation fills up the entirety of our efforts and vision. Although with the emergence of society, the ways in which the biological directive is implemented have changed, propagating our genes still remains the prime directive, until…
…until we get older and are past the point of needing to meet our biological obligations. The years of retirement, the years of being empty nesters, are the years when what we are doing is not of much relevance to evolution.
With advances in hygiene and medicine, we now live way beyond what procreation would have required. Together with that, we also are fortunate (or unfortunate) to be gifted with consciousness and are aware that there is a future.
It is in that future, resides our end.
When the vehicle that we are, starts to shift into lower gear, the thoughts of our own mortality and impermanence start to loom larger and larger.
For some, once the awareness of mortality decides to become a permanent tenant in the consciousness, we are prompted for a change. From that point onwards, to have an equanimous life, while living with the awareness of mortality, we need a framework for living that can resolve the inherent tension between living and dying.
While confronting mortality we need a framework for living so that when nearing the end of our life, we can say that our life was well lived. It is required so that if the end comes to us unexpectedly, we would be ready to depart in peace.
Having found or created a framework for living, how would we know if it was the correct one for us, and in the end, following it worked? If it is only towards the end of our life we get to evaluate that our chosen framework for living led to a life well lived, and if it turns out to be not so, would it not be too late?
Taken at the very end, a single test to measure the years of living and then finding that it did not quite work as we expected would be such a waste of time and effort.
Would it not be advisable to test the framework of living we have along the way before we are asked to walk on the coals?
Is such an assessment possible? Perhaps, there is a way.
Come to think of it, the basic unit of life is a day. A day adds to a week, a week to month, a month to a year, and before we know it, we have our life laid out in front of us.
If life is made up of days, and if days themselves are well lived, the entirety of life would also be well lived. The assertion may sound like bordering on trivial but is important to recognize and hold on to.
Instead of assessing if the framework of living we chose is likely to result in a life well lived, we could assess if following its guidance made our days well lived. For the latter, we get lots more opportunities, and if something is not working, we have an opportunity to either fine tune or try another framework for living.
The bottom line is, if we take care of individual days, in the end, they will take care of life.
And so, to figure out the framework for living that will make us say that our life was well lived, a good assessment for the viability of the framework would be to assess if it makes us feel if our days are well lived.
Today when we took another walk in the woods I wondered if trees are aware of the cycle of birth and death and also think about the meaning and purpose of their existence. Or perhaps, all wisdom that is needed to have a life well lived is second nature to them. It is only us who have to figure it out.
Ciao.
Summary
While confronted with mortality, we need a framework for living so that when nearing the end of our life, we can say that our life was well lived.
To be able to do that, we need a framework for living to guide us.
Having decided on a framework for living, we need to ensure it would bring the desired goal. To do that, we need to give it a test drive before we reach the end.
A good way to test drive our framework of living to see if following it makes our day well lived.
If we take care of individual days, in the end, they will take care of life.
Related:
Building a framework for living #1: Becoming aware of mortality
Building a framework for living #2: The basic premise for its need
Building a framework for living #3: Follow the advice from stoics
Building a framework for living #4: The basic principles
Building a framework for living # 4: The basic principles
Mortality and living, the two steadfast pillars of life.
We live, and yet, one day we die. We are part of a play, but someone behind the scene is waiting to draw the curtains following an unknown cue.
Every engineering feat of putting something together is an apt analogy to the progression of a life cycle. Something gets built and has a defined function. The “something” gets put to use. While in use, the “something” goes through wear, tear, and to the extent possible, efforts are made to repair to prolong the span of its utility. One day, however, the “something” eventually stops functioning.
That something also happens to be life. It is just that recognition of the fact that it ends is often not there until one day it's starkness becomes quite clear. The recognition of mortality, and the need to live could lead to lots of dilemmas.
For most of us until a certain point of time in life, the psychological receptors of mortality (PROM) are not expressed. It could happen that they may never get expressed.
For some others, the PROMs do get expressed but we find ways to dull their functions and their fallout.
Then there are those who get to live with their PROMs that are active. For them, to have a productive and functional life, they have to resolve the contradiction that living is also the process of dying.
The notion of PROM is like the sudden expression of genes that until a point in time were dormant, were merely a potential and then triggered by various stressors. A potential becomes a reality, oftentimes, with devastating consequences.
When PROMs get expressed, the fundamental task in our hands is to resolve the tension between the need to live and our continuing awareness of mortality. The basic requirement is to keep the sense of purpose and meaning in our life, without which, getting out of the bed becomes a chore, and passage of the day, an uninviting prospect to face.
Resolving any tension between any two entities requires change. Changes allow us to handle PROMs and regulate their consequences.
The two entities that are in tension are living and mortality. For now, we cannot change mortality but not that it is for the lack of trying. Perhaps one day we would.
The thing we can change is how we live. It is in our hands to change the way we live and help live side by side with our PROMs. To be able to do that, we need an appropriate framework for living as our guide. For finding the suitable framework, it would be good if one can have a few basic axioms (or guiding principles) as our guide, and following which, we can build up the required framework for living we need.
There are plenty of frameworks of living out there put together to come to grips with our awareness of mortality.
The notion that a lifetime of achievements, memories, knick knacks we hoarded will ultimately mean nothing, is an unsettling notion. The feeling of unease gets compounded by the realization that although we would not be around, the party goes on. Without us, the universe will continue to exist.
Mortality is the mother of all FOMOs.
Dealing with this FOMO has led to countless creative inventions - religion, reincarnation, heaven, fortune telling, innumerable philosophical constructs, among others.
Any of these might work for us, or none may. We could try them all but given limited resources and time we have at our disposal, we do not have the luxury to taste them all.
The bottom line is that among the frameworks for living that are out there, we need to find, and if we do not come across one, create one that fits with who we are. Each one of us, after all, has a unique self, and may require a unique solution.
When we think we have something in hand that fits well with our uniqueness, it also needs a test drive to see if it actually works. And as time goes along, and as different psychological receptors get expressed, the chosen framework for living may need continued tweaks.
So, the basic starting axioms for building a framework for living, and resolving the tension between the psychological receptors of mortality and the need to live, are:
Find or build a framework for living that fits our uniqueness, and
when followed, brings us the satisfaction that in the end, although the universe continues, we had a life that was well lived.
The second principle is the ultimate test whether we found the right framework of living for ourselves. One need not wait until the end of life to figure that out. There are faster ways to judge the appropriateness of the framework for living we chose.
And of course, if it does turn out that if we do continue to exist forever (but in a perverse way, we are better off not knowing that), that would be an added bonus. But if not, with the right framework for living, we would have lived a fulfilling and a wonderful life, and would not have been bullied by active PROMs.
Ciao.
Summary:
1. Mortality and living, the two steadfast pillars of life.
2. When the psychological receptors of mortality get expressed and become active, we have to resolve the tension between mortality and need to live. Between the two, the one we can change is how we live.
3. Having starting points would help to either find or construct a framework for living that works for who we are.
4. There are two principles to explore the right framework for living: (i) the appropriate framework for living should blend with our innate nature, and (ii) following which brings a sense that life has a meaning and a purpose, and is well lived.
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