One day
it does end.
It is the wee
hours of morning and lying in bed I am thinking that sometimes it would be refreshing
to wake up without needing to pass through the test of solving a crossword
puzzle to figure out how to live through the day.
It is not a
matter of just living though a day on an autopilot but living in such a way that
at the end when light in the sky is fading, and I am sitting alone and the silence
of evenings starts to feel like moments of being caught in a twilight zone, I
can look back and say that it was a day well lived.
Instead, here
I am half-awake thinking about the tiresome prospect of solving a crossword
puzzle hoping that if I complete, magically a door to a room would open where I
would find the correct recipe on how to live through a day to my satisfaction.
And that is not the only issue that
I grapple with when the day begins. There is also the dilemma of not quite knowing
how to reconcile the start and the end of a day with the cognizance of
mortality, while trying to find some meaning in between.
Is there a way that one could live
through the sequence of days and still be at ease with mortality? What could possibly
be good about living through the days and realizing that afterwards there are fewer
left to go?
And what is the meaning of living anyway?
I am not even sure if those are the
right words that express an emotion I am trying to gel. Perhaps, what I am
trying to ask, and trying to understand is that is it even possible for us to
reconcile the passing of a day with the finiteness of (our) existence. How can the
two stand side by side, pretend to be friends and not leave us utterly
confused?
Is there a magical cure that can be
internalized (and not be redoubted or questioned or revisited) and will make me
feel at peace again.
But let me get back to the beginning
of my day.
Even if I don’t quite know how to live
a day and reconcile it with mortality, I think I do know about the measure that
can be used to judge if my day was well spent or not. The measure is this - at
the end of the day if I feel that if my engagements are connected with what I value
that will be a day well spent. That will be a day I would not mind living again.
And perhaps, in spending a day well lived
also lies the key to coming to peace with mortality. After feeling that the day
was well spent, and I am serene and peaceful, I may feel a moment of
connectedness with the universe. In that connectedness, perhaps, I can
transcend my boundaries and hope to reconcile the eternal tension between the
inevitability of the passage of time and of my mortality.
Perhaps one day I will find the elusive
recipe and from then on I can wake up in the morning and there will not be
crossword puzzles waiting to be solved.
One day, I will just get up, and
without thinking, live.
Ciao.
One day this pier
would take me to my dreams
even if I have to walk alone
and have to step gingerly
over the turquoise waters
or have to float
like a bird's feather
in undulating waves,
but one day,
I shall reach
that distant horizon.
And we too are walking like others before
slowly across the bridge with heavy hearts
holding words but souls ready to pour;
we who thought
were two wheels of a bicycle
and will spin forever and will break the lore.
There is a saying that the amount of bickering between
humans is inversely proportional to how high the stakes are. The lower the
stakes, the more bickering. I am not
making this up. This is something known as Sayre's law.
The saying is generally used in the context of academia
where the department politics puts politics at the world stage to shame.
And what is the bickering in academia for? Aiming to become
the department Chair? Or perhaps a financial grant to support a graduate
student and to add papers to the CV?
Does one think that being the department Chair gives one
the power to lord over others?
Mind you, bickering
over small things is the state of affairs among the most educated people
society has to offer. These are people who hold PhD degrees (also referred to
as the terminal degree) from prestigious universities. These are the people who
are supposed to set an example and guide us to a higher level of consciousness
and lead us common folks out from the darkness but...
...like the rest of
us, these stalwarts of society fall prey to the same basic human instincts, one
of them being the desire to be the leader of the pack.
In all of us, there
continues to be an unshakable desire to be the alpha male and the PhD’s are no
exceptions.
The deeply rooted
desire to be the leader of the pack is the desire that served our genes well
along our evolutionary trajectory. You see, the basic purpose of genes is to
carry their lineage forward and traits that help achieve that, over time,
evolve to become automated behavioral preferences.
Being an alpha male
and being at the top of the pack can bring us some privileges - access to more
resources (think food), access to more mating partners. These privileges have
the consequence that the genes have a better chance of propagating forward.
We may or may not be
aware, the constructs of human minds are shaped by the basic desire of genes
that themselves are only self-replicating molecules that have no thinking
mechanism per se.
But over time, parts
of human consciousness have been slowly molded by the invisible hands of a
potter, who without an understanding of what he is trying to create, follows
the instructions from the genes.
The pace of social
evolution has advanced at a much faster rate than the timescale on which the
evolution of genes takes place, and we have not adjusted to the new paradigm of
a society that is no longer a hunter gatherer. But could one ever be free of
such gut level instincts that helped us during our days as hunter-gatherers,
e.g., the instinctive desire to be the leader of the pack?
Assuming that we would
not self-destruct and continue to survive as a species, given enough time would
we rise about the traits that genes and natural selection promoted in the past
but may no longer be required or beneficial anymore?
The argument that we
will not change could be made based on a plausible assumption that resources
are always limited, and survival and efficiency of procreation, is a fight to
corner limited resources. In this fight someone would always want to be the
leader of the pack, and in academic departments, there will always be a
bickering to be the Chair.
Is there a solution?
There may be one.
The solution is to
send faculty members to one week retreat where they are reminded of their
mortality. It is only when confronted with their finiteness that they will
realize how futile, and petty our bickering for inconsequential outcomes is.
I am not being cheeky.
When we wake up in the morning and remind ourselves that one day we will no
longer be around, it could result in a powerful change of our perspective. That
reminder has the power to be the antidote of Sayer’s law. It can make us
cognizant of the fact that low stakes are just that – low - and are not worth
bickering over.
I am positive that if
everyone reminded themselves that they are mortal, this world would be a much
better place.
Ciao.
Present is always
struggling to grow
living in the shadows
of the future
and its evil twin,
the past.
What it does not know,
that nothing grows
under the dense canopies
of banyan trees.
What it needs
is to move over
and breath under
blue skies, and be,
mindfully free.
Don’t just walk along
the entire beachfront
it is not meant to be conquered
it would much prefer
that you sit down
and take ten minutes
and have a look
at the clouds, and the horizon
and watch the waves
climbing up the sands
get tired and recede;
And if you do
then maybe someday
the images would become
part of a poem,
turning those ten minutes
into forever.
Sometimes out of blue, words fly across the sky of our consciousness and express what we have been trying to say for a long time and say it so much better.
Such serendipitous moments can happen while reading a book, clicking an innocuous link in some article we have been glancing through.
They could also be epiphanies while
taking a shower and suddenly a vague feeling we have been trying to put into
words finds the magic combination of words.
It happened a few evenings ago while
watching a movie by Woody Allen – Rifkin’s Festival. Towards the end of the movie, the protagonist Mort is
having a conversation with Death and what appears below is the script of that
conversation.
_____
Mort: Why are you here?
Death: To have our final chess game.
Mort: I don't have a chess set.
Death: I never leave home without
mine.
Mort: Why are you doing this?
Death: To give you a chance to
get to know me. To come to terms with me.
Mort: I'll never come in terms with
you.
Death: Then you'll never be able
to relax and enjoy your life.
Mort: Why are you suddenly being so
kind? You're usually ruthless.
Death: I'm not ruthless, I'm
indifferent. I just hate to see a poor schmuck ruin his life over the
inevitable.
Mort: Well, the way I feel this
morning, you could take me right now for all I care.
Death: What's this morning?
Mort: I've had the chance to look at
my life over the last few weeks and...I realized I've made a lot of bad
decisions
Death: Like what?
Mort: Like... Maybe I really was a
snob. A sort of pedantic ass who puts people off with my so-called high-brow
taste. All I know is my wife and I have split and my life has come up empty.
Death: Your life isn't empty,
it's meaningless. Don't confuse those two. It has no meaning for anybody but
that doesn't mean it has to be empty. You are a human being. You can make it
full.
Mort: How?
Death: There's work, family, love
- the usual bullshit, but it's reasonably effective. Even if you strike out
- trying is good for you. Have you ever read "Sisyphus" by Camus?
Mort: Yes, and it gave me a bad
dream. I'm pushing that rock up the hill, over and over, and it keeps falling
back, and then I finally get the rock up to the top of the hill, and then what
the hell do I have? A rock on a hill!
Death: You're starting to get me
depressed.
Mort: Should I just chuck my book
and go back to teaching movies?
Death: I would. Unless you want to
end up with 500 pages of turgid whining.
Mort: And maybe I'm just not a book
writer. Maybe I'm a book reader. Person who likes to think, a teacher. My movie
class was fun. Only...Maybe I was a little too rigid in my approach.
Death: I have to go. A got a million
house calls to make.
Mort: No, wait, wait.
Death: Don't worry, I'll be back one
day and then you'll think it's too soon.
Mort: You'll be back? When?
Death: Depends. Do you smoke?
Mort: No.
Death: The trick is to eat lots of
fruits and vegetables and lay off the saturated fats.
Mort: I do. I'm very careful.
Death: Good. Good. Make sure to
exercise. It doesn't have to be intense as long as it's every day.
Mort: You're fading out.
Death: No processed foods and don't
forget your colonoscopy!
_____
Before starting to watch the movie,
I had no idea that I would be privy to this conversation. The words just hit
home. When the scene in the movie was over, all I could think and say was WOW.
A few sentences in that dialog
sequence hit home – If we don’t come to understand and be at peace with our
mortality, we will never be able to relax and enjoy our life; why ruin our life
over the inevitable; life has no meaning for anybody but that doesn't mean it
has to be empty.
And at the end, the advice from
Death – eat well, live well, and the probability that you will live longer will
get better – also right on the mark.
Perhaps, my mind was in the right
energy state and was primed to be resonant to receive those words. The universe
delivered what I was ready to receive.
Those words of wisdom were also a
validation of thoughts that have been percolating through my mind. The hard
part now is to turn that knowledge, internalize it, live by it, and turn it
into wisdom. Easier said than done.
Ciao.
The thought of retirement can hit
like a hammer and leave us with a feeling of bewilderment, confusion, and
groping in the dark to find a path forward. I am not alone in going through the
trauma of retirement. If the number of podcasts and growing cadre of life
coaches is any indication, there is a tribe of people out there going through
the same emotions.
But why would
the thought of the inevitability of retirement feel so traumatic? Afterall, all of us have gone through transitions in our
life before and have managed them well. What is so special this time?
There are a couple of major
differences between the retirement transition and the transitions we managed
earlier in our lives that make this one special.
In our earlier transitions there was
always something ahead to transition to. We may be leaving something behind, it
was also clear where we were heading for. Finishing high school and leaving for
college filled us up with a sense of excitement about the prospects of the
future. Back then, we were busy building a future identity for ourselves,
learning new skills, dreaming of new destinations.
Earlier transitions also happened at
a time when we were young, and life seemed immortal.
The above two factors differ in retirement
as a life transition.
Retirement is a transition in which
we know what we will be leaving from
but may not know what we are leaving for.
Retirement also happens at a time when we are older, and we are more aware of
our mortality. The thought of death is no longer a vague notion. We become
acutely aware that we have an expiration date, and also, this could very well
be our last act.
As part of transition, we will also leave
many things behind that are dear to us. Our identity, routine, a conduit for
social interaction, a purpose.
The combination of an acute sense of
loss of aspects that work life provided. and our growing awareness of our
mortality, is a potent mixture that makes retirement a traumatic experience.
In a paper in the Canadian Journal of
Counselling and Psychotherapy, the author John W. Osborne (2012) aptly
summarized: “These [psychological] effects [of retirement] include partial identity
disruption, decision paralysis, diminished self trust, experience of a post
retirement void, the search for meaningful engagement in society, development
of a retirement/life structure, the confluence of aging and retirement, death
anxiety, the critical nurturing of social relationships, and
self-actualization.” If we are not prepared, this is a heavy load to carry,
and we can easily come unmoored, feel adrift, and experience the trauma of
retirement. To lessen its bluntness, addressing, and knowing, where we are
heading to is the key.
An important strategy of having
successful retirement and aiming for a smoother transition is (a) recognizing
that retirement is going to happen, and (b) that planning for it is going to
need work and a lot of effort. The earlier these recognitions dawn on us, the
better off we will be when the time comes.
The easiest transition from work to
retirement is when we already have some tried and tested engagements in place
that will carry us forward on the day we retire.
It is good to know that we are not
alone in feeling a sense of anxiety and trauma with the prospect of facing
retirement. There is a tribe of people out there with the same concerns. There
are those who have gone through the same stress, and with adequate preparation,
have come out from the other end feeling reinvigorated.
Retirement may feel like paradise
lost but it can be turned into paradise regained. Thanks to the internet there are
a vast number of resources out there that we can lean on for help.
Ciao.
Some helpful resources:
Journey Through the 6 Stages of Retirement
The Retirement Answer Man Podcast
Retirement Heaven or Hell – Which One Will You
Choose? (Book)
Keys to a Successful Retirement: Staying
Happy, Active, and Productive in Your Retired Years (Book)
Yesterday I sent a few emails that could have cascading consequences down the road in the context of increasing the scope of my work involvements. You see, I have been pondering over the possibility of retirement and sending those emails was not congruent with those thoughts.
I could have held my fingers back and not initiated anything. But I did not and decided to hit the return and send the emails zooming through the internet to their destination.
And then, there are a few other emails that are waiting in the wings that I can send which also have potential for developing into further engagements.
Therein lies a dilemma I am currently introspecting with — I should initiate ideas that could become longer lasting (and engaging) projects and have the potential to draw me back into the universe of work or should I put myself on the cruise control for another year or so and then retire?
In choosing the path of getting engaged in work again lurks the fear that I will be moving away from developing activities outside of work life.
As I found out in the last couple of years the hard way, these activities are essential for (i) transitioning into the next phase (of a finite) life, and (ii) are an insurance of having alternatives at hand to transition into. Having that alternative in hand ensures that if for some reason work life does come to a sudden halt, it will not be a repeat of the shock that it was a few years back.
Therefore, by choosing to continue the work life I do not want to get in a position where I am short of time for the other activities I have been cultivating.
The question I am pondering is whether in choosing the path of re-engaging in work life would I be able to maintain a balance between work and activities outside of work and not return to a place where work was all encompassing and was the sole identity that defined me.
That path of work also conflicts with the daydreams of spending days taking walks on the beach, of cultivating a life of poise and serenity, of being someone sitting at the banks of a gently flowing river and content with watching its flow, i.e., in general, wishing for a life with a slower pace, and with a much smaller portfolio of activities.
In choosing the path of work I also need to ensure that it does not conflict with my cognizant of mortality and not let it get buried under the rat race and politics that work can be. This is needed so the reality of being mortal does surprise me again.
Reminding myself that I am mortal keeps me grounded and humble.
But why do I want to return to work life when I am in a place where thoughts of being retired and the prospect of having an abundance of time is no longer a terrifying prospect.
The simple reason is that my brain still works (which is a good thing!). It can still produce creative ideas that so many of my colleagues cannot.
Going down the old path of work also has other consequences, for example, I am giving away some of my control. I also do not know how long it may last, and therefore, I am taking on some uncertainty.
In addition, by choosing to continue to work, I am also putting my freedom back in the hands of others, for example, my supervisor holding the authority over what I should and should not do. These annoyances are the usual struggles of work life (and its politics).
Is there a path in which (a) if work track ends then unlike the fear I had earlier I would not be thrown out of loop by the thought of needing to retire, (b) I will not be at the mercy of whims of supervisors and colleagues, and © I will not care about the consequences of not engaging in the work politics.
The answer is yes.
The answer is to build a work life that also has time to cultivate alternate paths and is fully aware that there is an alternative path that I can take if work does not pan out. The perfect analogy for such a paradigm of life would be two parallel train tracks with switches, and if needed, I can easily change and leave the track of work behind.
The answer is yes, if I keep a balance in which I continue to cultivate activities outside of work, and further, if I keep reminding myself of mortality so as not to forget that my time on this Earth is finite.
The solution, therefore, is to build a life with two parallel tracks — one for work and one for activities outside of work — giving me the recognition and a sense of freedom that if one path ends, I know an alternative is readily available.
Yet another fear is that if I go down this road there would be that much less time to do other things in life. Examples of activities I want to do include — taking weeks off without having to worry about work deadlines, taking walks on the beach, taking trips. After all, we are not getting any younger. Could this aspect also be remedied? Yes.
The potential solution to alleviate that concern would be to put money we worked hard to save and put it to use and find appropriate solutions and enjoy the pleasures and experiences having access to discretionary cash flow can bring. In other words, put money to work.
Although these are some preliminary ideas, they do bring a sense of comfort and give me a sense of freedom that I have not felt in a long time. They give me space to breathe.
Ciao.
On my left stands
light
on my right stands
death
in between stands I
forever trying to calm
my bewildered breath.