“Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Note 58): I came up with this imaginary encounter to help me process getting older. I am 68-years old walking down the street, turn the corner and run into my 20-year-old self. I (David) am shocked, but very curious. The young me (Dave) barely recognizes me as an older version of himself. ”You have forgotten me,” says young Dave. In my defense, I respond, “No it’s you who have forgotten me.”
They walk to the park and find a bench sit and talk. “You have forgotten what you were like,” Dave says. “You loved learning and growing while in college, escaping the farm, and having an incredible new exciting social life with so many new friends. You remember how excited and challenged you were in Peace Corps, Ghana, West Africa. You know how you felt when you fell in love, consumed with those euphoric feelings and thinking you have found a starship partner to share your adventures. You loved pushing your body, working out everyday. You were so proud of yourself for being on the varsity soccer team for three years, and how you ran every day, at least six miles. You know how you craved to understand your spiritual side, reading Siddhartha at 18 and Yogananda, and then trying to sort your Christian upbringing. You felt invincible, nobody was going to get in the way of your next great adventure. What happened to you David? Where did you go?”
“The good old days, huh?,” David responds.
“You have forgotten how reckless you were at times, you experimented with everything, all drugs, every alcoholic beverage known to man, and all those stupid dares you did for your buddies to get attention. You were all about sex, drugs and rock and roll, a typical hippie. They called you “animal” in college and you were so proud of that. Well you never thought about what those reckless behaviors could cost you. You were lucky, just to be on probation for the last two years of college because of the campus vandalism with your two buddies after karate practice. You were an athlete, on a college varsity soccer team, but you also abused your body. You were so impressionable, drifting with the wind. You were so open to everything which also caused you to waste a lot of time, often hanging out with dreamers who were not going anywhere in life. You were so selfish. You took your wife to Africa for Peace Corps, and then drug her across the country to California so you could attend college again to get a degree in Plant Science. It was your dream, probably never hers. She loved you and sacrificed everything for you.”
“Well what is so great about your life old wrinkled man?”
“Be careful young Dave, respect your elders.” I have to admit I miss some of those intense feelings, those feeling of having an athletic body, falling in love again, having something in my life as impactful as Peace Corps, experimenting with drugs to go beyond the senses. However Dave, you don’t get it. I see this body now as just a shell housing a spirit that has moved on to much deeper levels with just as many opportunities for adventure and personal growth. It is possible to not identify with the body and override the sensual pleasures. You see I have your experiences in my memories but now have so much more that you will never know until you are me at 68. I don’t have to chase rainbows, figure out who will reject me, find me unpopular, or judge me out of their own insecurities or projections. I don’t have to give a shit. I don’t have to have a new car or a big house and will probably drive my Honda till the wheels fall off. I don’t wear someone else’s clothing label, figure out where I want to live, or believe love is about falling in love, now knowing love is about rising together, attaining deeper levels of intimacy, not just sex or chemistry. I feel closer to God and nature, no longer feeling so confused about which spiritual path to follow. Most of all it’s finding peace and being grateful instead of never being satisfied, always distracted, obsessed, restless as you were in your youth.”
Dave responds: “BORING!!!”
EXERCISE
Try the above exercise or your version of youth vs where you are now. See what you can come up with.
Until next time, don’t act your age!