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August 18, 2022

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Great post. And great analogy, the cat thing. (And cool vid. Everyone knows cats can fall and walk away, but I had no idea they could manage so many floors!)

Haha, another cool analogy -- albeit maybe not intended as such -- is the drunk! No, really. Given what we know of the insubstantiality of both life and self, eat-drink-make-merry-tomorrow-you-die would appear to be one not unreasonable strategy to live off of, provide one has the temperament to carry it off fully and right through till the very end!

[“In the same way, it is the philosophy of the Tao that we are all falling off a tree, at every moment of our lives. As a matter of fact, the moment we were born we were kicked off a precipice and we are falling, and there is nothing that can stop it.”]


The saying ‘going with the flow’ came to mind on reading this and I believe there is a lot of sense in a middle way between ‘Not too tense.’ Not too rigid.’ But then I thought how fortunate I am to have the kind of life situation where I am able to steer a course between such extremes.

I can imagine many an infant at the start of life and ‘free falling’ from their tree, suddenly being grabbed by other, equally falling individuals, who hi-jacks them into some belief system that hangs a heavy conceptual construct on how to think and how to live. I am thinking of children who are born into cultures which impose rigid belief systems onto them that they unwittingly accept and which govern the rest of their lives. They grow up clinging to these ideas and have little chance of throwing them off and living the relaxed life.

In fact, even those who have not been indoctrinated into a particular belief system, their early life situation can cause them to grab onto any number of things to protect (or even prevent) them in their falling – such as wealth, position, family, projects, organisations etc. All of which could obviate the ideal ‘middle way.’

It is apparent that life, being precarious, practically invites us to embrace extremes that prevents ‘free’ falling – with the illusion of either not falling or of landing safely. The question is, how is a mind shackled to extremes, able to see this and drop the baggage in order to ‘fall’ (and perhaps land) naturally?

Age is just the process of change happening.

You could live your entire life as the most honest, kindest and compassionate person on the entire planet and you will still experience the natural effects of the aging process.

How you come into relationship to those natural effects will define whether you grow old as the perpetual worrier or you adapt to the changes with an acceptance that allows the mind to be at peace.

The aging process is not a punishment imposed by a figment of the imagination.

The punishment is imposed by our own minds that cannot accept its actuality.

Of course, there are many things we can do throughout our lives to make the aging process perhaps more comfortable, but the likelihood is that we’ve been so busy doing other things that our minds forget the process exists and we only get reminded once a year when we attach ourselves to a new number.

Then it seems that all of a sudden, bits of us start slowing down, wearing out or falling off and we don’t like it.

We get a stark reminder of the inevitability of death and how time might be running out and we don’t like that either.

The root cause of the worrying mind will always be found in not wanting our current experience to be as it is.

Age is just a number we become attached to.

Like every other human experience, age is a state of mind.

The secret to a contented life is to embrace the change.

Therefore, grow old disgracefully ....................

Let grey be the new black.

You’ve earned the right to be old. Throw away the beige and grey clothes and get some color back into your life.

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