Dying

I started dying when I was born. Each moment of growth was accompanied by a little death.  With respect to the French saying that orgasm is a “little death,” my experience, has been that death has been with me no matter what I have done. I didn’t know it at the time, my death-realization only came to mind a few years ago. It turns out that when I looked hard at my life, I saw that each turn toward greater being was also a letting go, a death-like release. I have grown because I died.

By now, the astute reader, will recognize that I am not referring to death in the usual way. In my reality, death is not the end of the story, or the light at the end of the tunnel. It isn’t juxtaposed with Life. Instead, it is a part of Life, a regular, albeit a poorly regarded part, of each green unfolding. It is the dark light that shines dimly on the green fuse. Death is the great impermanator, the antimatter wholeness, that makes room for further evolution. 

My perception, that death has been with me from my beginnings, that it is part of my life, has changed the way I hold the decline I am experiencing. Life has taken on another hue, as loss (true little death) has reshaped my life, and prepared me for another stage. Having integrated death into living, I find myself less afraid, and a lot more peaceful and intrigued.  Now, I am just awed by how death and birth are related.

About 6 years ago, I got exposed to a Hafiz poem, that has stimulated and beguiled me. The poem, called “Deepening the Wonder” starts with the line “Death is a favor to us.” I’ve found myself thinking about how it could be a favor ever since. Over time, I arrived at the idea that death helps me clarify what really matters. It is like some kind of smelling salt, it brings me back to consciousness, where I am more prone to notice the life I am living. My life gets a little more vivid.  It seems like the more I experience death, the more I experience Life. What a strange, and interesting, paradox!

Death is an aid to Life, some kind of essential ingredient, that vivifies the dance of Creation. I would have never guessed. My culture is so busy, producing — death only represents one form of productive interruption, an inconvenience to be tolerated. Another machine stopped working. Instead, with my realization, Life and Death, take on a charge of meaning, that dignifies the process of being here. 

That is an amazing attribute for such a poorly-reputed quality of Nature!

Now, I live with a strange regard for the role death plays in making impermanence so electric. Everything is passing so quickly. I barely notice, even though I know I am one of those things. But, thankfully, death sometimes gets poignant enough, so that I get a dose of the Mystery operating within all of this. Death is a favor. I exist for only a moment on this Earth, and then something momentous takes place, altering again the trajectory I’m on. It is both: an old, and a new story.

Life Gets Better

Life Gets Better is the title of a book by geriatric social worker Wendy Lustbader. In her forward, she explains that she got the idea for her title while on vacation, taking a bus tour. The tour guide invited everyone to introduce themselves to the whole busload of people. Each person was invited to the front of the bus to use the tour bus microphone to say something about themselves. Through the process she learned that she was the oldest person on the bus. Later, after the bus arrived, she was approached by several of the younger passengers, each of whom expressed to her, how important it was for them to hear her say that Life got better.

She was led to the title of her book — whereas I was introduced to one of the answers to a question that vexed me, and many of the old people I know. What do we pass along to coming generations, and how? It seems to me that old and young alike need to know that Life can, and does, get better. Aging is far more than a death sentence, it is a period in life to bask in the Sun. There are many ways it can get better, but most of us don’t know that that is possible — only an old person can credibly make that claim. Not by talking about it, but by being it. When wrinkles come with joy, they have a delightful impact. On all of us.

Knowing that Life gets better sets a tone of expectancy that paints everything with a special vibrancy. I know I end up anticipating good things. And, just like with my gratitude practice, good things begin showing up. Somehow, expecting Life to go that way, increases the likelihood, and pleasure, I experience, when things happen.

There is a special kind of joy that accompanies this form of knowing. It’s totally experiential. There is no need to convince, persuade or otherwise proselytize anyone. The knowing is evident. The only way to make it available is by living it.

It’s a secret that hides in plain sight, and that reveals itself in plain pleasure.

I spent most of my early life depressed, caught-up in a world of pathological orientation. If life wasn’t perfect, there was something wrong. It almost always turned out to be me. So, imagine my relief, when I got old enough to really get Wendy’s wisdom. Life has its own course, and it tends toward the better — despite any limitations I might bring. A smile came over my soul, and I knew my happiness isn’t a fluke. Now, instead of a tendency toward depression, I have a tendency toward awe.

People need to know how Life becomes something else. Decline can happen, people get lost in pessimism and loss, but right there is the gain, and right there is Life’s wily influence. Knowing that Life uses defeat sometimes to create victory— the incredible outcome— reaffirms possibility, and is deeply reassuring. Life gets better, rarely in the way we expect, but inexorably.

It is too easy to fall prey to cynicism, to be convinced by the deluded chant of scientism, to succumb to our culture’s over-reliance on the material. Much harder to handle, is the simple experience of a life well-lived. That is really what some people have to offer. Life gets better. 

Deep Responders

 A lot of accolades have been heaped upon the firefighters, police, doctors, nurses, and other frontline workers. Deservedly so. They have been putting their lives on the line for all of us. They are the first responders — the ones who deal with the emergencies and protect us all. They deserve recognition for doing their incredibly demanding jobs. 

This Slow Lane, however, is not about them. It is about the unrecognized, but equally important responders who figure out what is going on, and how something else can happen. These are the deep responders, who are also doing a job for all of us, but don’t usually get the notice they deserve.

Victor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote of survival in the death camps, “There is only one freedom that cannot be taken away, and that is how one plays the cards, that one is dealt.” That is, what deep responders do, they figure out the best way of addressing the situation at hand. They practice the very rare freedom of creative response. They are the system thinkers, intuitives, and outside-the-box players, that discover solutions to the complex challenges that also plague us.

They are deep responders. They hang out with a painful dilemma long enough to sense what matters about it, so that it can be rightly approached. They are frequently marginalized and considered exotic. Yet, they provide a most essential service. Deep responders are the ones who are more truly heroic. It isn’t their job to provide anything to us, yet they do. They alert us to how our response ensures the dilemma, and how changing our response changes everything.

It is important to notice deep responders, and how they work. It is them, who have taught us, that the quality of our response is what makes something benign. They reveal how important the ability to respond is. They also reveal that the ability to hang out with a dilemma long enough is a necessary skill, that is essential for some situations. 

In fact, an adequate response, is often only cooked up from the juices of what is hurting. Deep responders respect the dilemma, and don’t try to get rid of it, like first responders often do. Sometimes an emergency is just that, the emergence of something essential and unseen before. Deep responders give homage to what they face, and sometimes discover the hidden gift inside a dilemma. They are the ones who innovate and allow us to evolve. In conjunction with first responders they save a lot of lives, but their unique function is saving the future, by recognizing the ineffable coming through a significant difficulty. 

Think about that. The deep responders are already engaged, In fact, you might be one of them. The uncertainty you feel might just be the essential ingredient that this, or any, dilemma might have to contribute. It might take a while to unfold, to become exasperated enough to generate sensitized attention, to become hot enough to make a real difference. Let’s hope that you and I are deep responders enough to notice, and to take our own perceptions seriously.

Deep responders, unlike first responders, are less reactive. They give time to what takes time. That is why I tend to think elders with frail bodies are better responders than the body-minded first responders. In addition to bodies attuned to hardship, elders have more experience with how some things unfold. They also have the advantage of perspective. When a deep response is wanted, I’d rather have some gray-haired wisdom on my side.

Ultimately, those of us, who have had the privilege of surviving very long, become deep responders. Life asks something of each of us. Our response is in how we craft our lives. Our response is what makes each of us unique — snowflakes in the storm of existence. Deep responders in the end.

Wonder

It’s Sunday morning and I want to write a Slow Lane. But, I’m hesitating. The things I thought I might write about, are either too cool or too hot. Neither will really do.  So, I’m just sitting here wondering. I want to write, to enjoy the respite from being so physically broken, that these little writing meditations allow. Now, I’m just sitting in silence, waiting for some inspiration to strike me.

As I do, my mind wanders.  I’m remembering the new men’s group that met for the first time yesterday. It was a complex, uncomfortable event. Every time I start-up with a set of new men, it feels like trying to start a conversation with my father — awkward silence, or small talk. 

Eventually a lot got surfaced. We marveled at being a group of old men meeting. All of us wanted to compare notes, we were sharing in something men in this culture don’t do, and never really get to experience so thoroughly. Getting old, publicly, becoming vulnerable, visibly. Out of our first meeting came a sense of wonder. We seemed to know enough, that there was widespread agreement, that we didn’t know much of anything. This left us with a lot to wonder about.

We never tried for any kind of agreement, but it seemed to me, we shared bafflement — at getting so old, at having slipping bodies, at wondering what we were for, at aching with uncertainty about what we might have to give. Losing so much left us feeling raw.

It was a good and unusual experience. There is no way to evaluate it. We were all virgins, meeting together, to do something we didn’t know how to do. Pretty extraordinary for a group of men. I liked it, except I can’t exactly say why. I guess I think meeting — if only this once — was such a courageous, and counter-cultural thing to do.

It left me wondering. I notice I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Feeling awed by what’s happening, or overwhelmed, by the mystery that seems folded into everything. There was a point in yesterday’s group, when we men surmised, that perhaps, our ability to wonder was what we have to offer. I like the notion of being aged into wonder. It makes me feel like Life knows what it is doing.

So, anyway, as I’m getting older — heading toward the horizon — I’ve found myself thinking, about whether I have anything to leave behind — for other’s coming along? My guess is no. It seems that people benefit by discovering for themselves. I care, but I’ve learned from my disability helplessness, that caring is complicated, and that people, no matter their circumstances, seem to thrive best, when they have weathered uncertainty, for what matters to them. 

In the meantime, I ponder. It seems like it is good that I’m getting slower and slower, more silent, less confident, and more uncertain. I’m slowly sinking into non-existence, becoming invisible, a shade, soon to be forgotten. I expect I’ll make a good anonymous ancestor. Though, of course, I wonder about that.

Conjecture, that is what I seem to be good at now. Living has taken away all of my certainties. It fascinates me, that all of my lifetime of losses, has brought me to this place. I wonder, if there is something inevitable, and natural, about wondering this much.

Shut-In

I discovered a part of myself recently that reflects a long-neglected aspect of my humanity, and a deeply ignored part of being alive. I guess the Covid virus stimulated a dormant sensitivity, that awakened me to a long-standing inequity. It has been painful to realize that I am part of an invisible minority, that is constantly experiencing unconscious prejudice. Worst yet, my discovery included the recognition, that I have been an unwitting participant in keeping this population invisible. 

I started being a house bound person nearly 5 years ago, when I realized I could no longer drive. My car, driver’s license, insurance and visibility went away. I became a non-entity, no longer worth saving. As I became less able to participate in the ritual gatherings of the mobile throng, I became more and more isolated, and less and less visible. Now, I exist in only a few minds, and may not even be a statistic to the rest of humanity. I am a bad combination; old, disabled and shut-in.

I’ve been disabled a while now. In the beginning of this experience I had to learn to face the prejudice against the disabled that is everywhere. That was hard, but the hardest part, was facing that same prejudice inside myself. I’ve overcome that social ignorance, or so I thought, then I recently realized a deeper dimension of that ignorance. Now, I have to come to terms with the ease with which I go along with ignoring my own humanity.

They say, “out of sight, out of mind.” I can personally attest to the veracity of that remark. We, who are house-bound, shut-in by circumstance, are out of sight, and thus, too often, are ignored. There is something deeply distorting about living in the invisible realm. It is too easy to believe that one is not worth being seen, known, valued, or saving. The pain of not being considered is merciless. I am wheelchair bound, but that is an unfortunate circumstance, compared to being so far out of sight, that I don’t exist.

I learned over the last couple of years, that no state or county agency takes responsibility for tracking and helping shut-ins. No city departments, including the police and fire departments, know about, and assist those who are vulnerable enough, that they cannot help themselves. Even non-profits, which generally try to help those who can’t help themselves, offer no assistance to those unfortunate enough to be shut-in. Shut-ins are amongst the most isolated humans on the Earth.

I find myself angry about this injustice. I am a taxpayer, but evidently one that isn’t worth much. I’m savvy enough to know that my anger is a secondary emotion. Below it resides the true feeling. Below my anger is disappointment. I am in grief about living in a world that practices such carelessness. I ache knowing such aloneness, not only for myself, but for our kind.

A few days ago I had another realization about this. This one was more painful and disturbing than the earlier ones. I have been an advocate for the importance of an inner life. I have spent my entire life praising the inner dimension of being human. I believe that that is our real human genius. But, when I realized that a shut-in, is someone who is cut-off, trapped with their unappreciated insides, I melted into a pool of tears. Is this what human life has come to? Are we so divorced from our own inner being — that we can tolerate letting go of inner mystery?

Being a shut-in now has a special poignancy, an uncertainty about our kind. It isn’t so much about being alone now, it is about the extinction of human sensitivity.

Feeling the weight of this uncertainty breeds in me a deeply corrosive loneliness, the opposite of solitude. I ache continuously.