I've been thinking - a lot.
As my father's life is nearing it's end, I find myself outside, observing the ways in which we deal with aging and death. For most of western culture (or at least in my minimal experience), death is full of isolation, confusion, regret, impotence, and long looks in the mirror. We slowly exclude the old and frail from society and community. We hide the dying and dead, not only physically (in rest homes and beautified ceremonies), but also in thoughts and words, and in our belief in some kind of afterlife. There is no death, only a "transformation" and a "life beyond".
I don't deny that these strategies provide comfort when we need it most. And yet, they also keep us a safe distance from fully appreciating our own mortality. As we deny a final death in others, we try to look for evidence of our own permanence, an attempt to disguise the underlying fear of our own lives coming to an end.
Now, I've always been a bit of a morbid kid. Well maybe not morbid, but....existential. I thought about life, and death, a lot. The meaning of life has been a continuous theme since I can remember, and one that had a huge impact on a 9-year old tree-climbing tom-boy. It was easy then. I had a direct, child-like, clear vision of my soul (for lack of a better word) and purpose in life, and while the borders of that vision ebbed and flowed slightly with youthful experience and curiosity, the outlines stayed mostly true to their original form. It's easy to live a life without regrets when you are confident in your own vision (and a young adult's naive view of immortality!).
I have to admit that for much of my life, I've been proud that through constant reflection and not-so-constant meditation, I retained that direct pathway and clear vision to this "soul". I felt untainted by outside expectations, and being a rebel at heart, it was easy to shrug off naysayers. And yet, within the past 10-15 years, the vision has muddied, self-doubt has crept in more often than I like to admit, and I find myself working to please others more than giving in to self-centered whims. I've sold out.
Now I've realized where the recent creeping anxiety and guilt stem from - I've been lying, lying to my deepest, darkest parts, the parts that keep whispering "Remember me? Remember me? Come back home....".
Yet some of the parts that make me ME are still intact. I know them to be 100% true. I will never eat meat again. There is no doubt, guilt, or shame or expectation in that, just as there would be none if I told you I would never eat Comet. It is simply a clear truth.
How amazing it would be to feel this confident in all other aspects of my truest self! Is that even possible to live a life free from doubt? Is it possible that every action you take could be an expression of exactly what you feel and know to be true to you? And if not, what would be the downfall if you tried?
So as of today, I'm starting an experiment. I'm going to make a conscious decision to throw off the existential guilt of the past decade, clean the windows to my soul, and reconnect to what I know to be true. I have no illusions that this will be easy, or even possible. It's scary to think that once I remember my truth, there may be many areas of my life that are incongruent - will I have the courage to reexamine and realign those areas and make changes? We'll see.
Perhaps it will be worth it when, at the end of my life, I can say that I had the courage to live a life true to myself, to have few regrets, and leave this world with a sense of fulfillment and awe.
As my father's life is nearing it's end, I find myself outside, observing the ways in which we deal with aging and death. For most of western culture (or at least in my minimal experience), death is full of isolation, confusion, regret, impotence, and long looks in the mirror. We slowly exclude the old and frail from society and community. We hide the dying and dead, not only physically (in rest homes and beautified ceremonies), but also in thoughts and words, and in our belief in some kind of afterlife. There is no death, only a "transformation" and a "life beyond".
I don't deny that these strategies provide comfort when we need it most. And yet, they also keep us a safe distance from fully appreciating our own mortality. As we deny a final death in others, we try to look for evidence of our own permanence, an attempt to disguise the underlying fear of our own lives coming to an end.
Now, I've always been a bit of a morbid kid. Well maybe not morbid, but....existential. I thought about life, and death, a lot. The meaning of life has been a continuous theme since I can remember, and one that had a huge impact on a 9-year old tree-climbing tom-boy. It was easy then. I had a direct, child-like, clear vision of my soul (for lack of a better word) and purpose in life, and while the borders of that vision ebbed and flowed slightly with youthful experience and curiosity, the outlines stayed mostly true to their original form. It's easy to live a life without regrets when you are confident in your own vision (and a young adult's naive view of immortality!).
I have to admit that for much of my life, I've been proud that through constant reflection and not-so-constant meditation, I retained that direct pathway and clear vision to this "soul". I felt untainted by outside expectations, and being a rebel at heart, it was easy to shrug off naysayers. And yet, within the past 10-15 years, the vision has muddied, self-doubt has crept in more often than I like to admit, and I find myself working to please others more than giving in to self-centered whims. I've sold out.
Now I've realized where the recent creeping anxiety and guilt stem from - I've been lying, lying to my deepest, darkest parts, the parts that keep whispering "Remember me? Remember me? Come back home....".
Yet some of the parts that make me ME are still intact. I know them to be 100% true. I will never eat meat again. There is no doubt, guilt, or shame or expectation in that, just as there would be none if I told you I would never eat Comet. It is simply a clear truth.
How amazing it would be to feel this confident in all other aspects of my truest self! Is that even possible to live a life free from doubt? Is it possible that every action you take could be an expression of exactly what you feel and know to be true to you? And if not, what would be the downfall if you tried?
So as of today, I'm starting an experiment. I'm going to make a conscious decision to throw off the existential guilt of the past decade, clean the windows to my soul, and reconnect to what I know to be true. I have no illusions that this will be easy, or even possible. It's scary to think that once I remember my truth, there may be many areas of my life that are incongruent - will I have the courage to reexamine and realign those areas and make changes? We'll see.
Perhaps it will be worth it when, at the end of my life, I can say that I had the courage to live a life true to myself, to have few regrets, and leave this world with a sense of fulfillment and awe.
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