“The seat of the soul
is where the inner and the outer world
meet.
Where they overlap,
it is in every point of overlap.”
— Novalis
I don’t know why I
dread writing this piece so much. It seems like the assertion of a naturally
occurring kind of integrative process would be good news. The overlap, as
Novalis says in his brief aphorism, is the “seat of the soul.” For me, the
amazing thing is that Nature seems to be guiding us (by that I mean we humans)
towards greater integration as we age, and an increased likelihood of achieving
the overlap. That realization thrills me, but something else bothers me. I
don’t know what it is.
First, I’ll start
with the good news. Aging has an unexpected effect. My guess is that the
integrative process, which I have come to see as the principle developmental
and instinctual thrust of later life, has languished out of sight, because of
the blindness of ageism, and the inability to break wisdom down. Nature,
never-the-less, seems intent upon ripening human beings into a fuller
expressions of themselves. The instinct of integration kicks in during later
life in some unexpected ways. The productiveness of commercial and economic
activity gives way to the productiveness of increasing uniqueness and becoming
more fully oneself. The outside moves in. Creation seems to matter more, in the
long run, than the economy.
Devaluing the old,
devalues our own future. The human potential movement reveals just how ageist
our culture is. The most experienced, most mature, and ripest of us (humans)
have been ignored, and worse yet, mistreated. The present is dominated with either/or
thinking of the worst sort, and doesn’t acknowledge the benefit of any form of integration.
The overlap is not even a possibility in this kind of polarized world, at least
not in our human-made world. Fortunately, Life has a larger agenda. Some people
escape the gravitational pull of mass assumptions and become more. They are the
true elders. Their lives reflect a kind of wisdom that comes from a higher
order of integration.
I can fairly easily
grasp the warm pleasure that permeates my body when I consider, and notice
within, the compelling attraction of freedom and integrity. These by-products
of integration have a gravitational pull of their own. But I notice I still
feel some trepidation, an unnamed anxiety starts flooding my being, I feel like
I’m walking more deeply into a minefield. There is something dangerous here.
What could it be?
I’m not sure. It
does occur to me, as I dwell on this uncertainty, that pointing out the natural
flow towards integration might be construed as an attack upon the other,
earlier in development, positions. Am I doing another version of what is so prevalent
in this world? Am I saying that polarization is bad? No. I realize that one has
to live fully through each stage, to ever even hope to get to anything like the
big picture and actual integration. Aging is fraught with lots of difficulty.
Not the least of these difficulties has to do with the question about how to
hold the past?
It is so hard to
talk about the full-range of human development without giving full and
essential recognition to every stage in the process. Being human is all of it.
There isn’t a point where one is more or less human. All stages are essential
to becoming a full human. What does this mean? I don’t know, I’ve only recently
begun to grapple with this picture. I thank God, I have lived long enough to
actually see this much of the picture. It’s a marvelous vista I get to behold.
But it’s a demanding one too.
For instance, I can
see that we (humans) are complex. It obviously takes a while for us to unfold
fully. And at each step in the process the world looks different and we become
capable of different things. None of these developments is all of who we are
capable of being. And all of those stages are favored by some, as the way it
should be. Human history is full of conflict. Much of it has had to do with
asserting the preeminence of one stage of human development (as embodied by a
particular culture or individual) over another. I don’t want to add to that
misdirected hostility. I’m not asserting that the aged perception is better,
only that is different, and that it adds to the larger picture.
I think a big part
of what it adds is the perspective gained from integration. Later life is about
the coming together of seeming opposites. Inner and outer, as the poet Novalis
points out, and also action and stillness, anger and peace, solitude and
relationship confinement and freedom. These are seen as opposites, but can also
be seen as single points, spaces on the spectrum that overlap. I think our
ultimate ripeness is like that, the places were opposites overlap, places of
integration. And, each stage in the ripening process adds to that integration.
This is delicate
terrain. I can feel the Great Mystery at work. What I think I know, which
comprises the discoveries I am uttering here, are my best attempts to give
voice to what I couldn’t possibly know. Integration seems to include not
knowing. I wonder if it includes the audacity of expressing what one doesn’t
know?
