I have just written a letter to myself from the eighty year old version of me. It was very cathartic and even nearly brought me to tears a few times. The letter was private to me but what it did was allow me to focus on what was important in life. As I started to write, the fact that I had been very successful in the things I liked doing in the first twenty five years of my life became apparent. The next block of years haven’t all been unhappy but have been a bit dull and self-destructive in many ways. But here is the real stinger, I probably have only have another twenty five years left so I need to get back to the success years pretty sharpish. Afterall, the earlier version was the dress rehearsal, wasn’t it?
I don’t want to go back to do the ‘I wish I had done’ or the ‘What if…’ of the things I did in earlier years as the older me either can’t do them or doesn’t want to strive for those things anymore. Here is the take away point here though, are you ready:
It is the mindset I need to revive not the activities!
Let me repeat that, ‘IT IS THE MINDSET IN NEED TO REVIVE!’ In order to do this, I have been doing some thinking about what I used to do when I was a child/ young adult. What did I like about that person? At this point, I realised that I had let many of the good qualities I had back then go. I am not entirely sure why I did this, or any of us do, but I suspect it is because we are expected to become an adult in society. Adults aren’t allowed to dream, they must conform, they must do what is safe and they must look after others. This means it is mandatory to put everything and everyone in front of your own needs, ESPECIALLY if those needs include dreams which take you away from conformity.
I have recently read a novel which has a significant part of it focusing on someone with manic depression or as it is now known, bipolar disorder. The character at one point says she would rather be dead than go back to the dull, grey world the drugs they give her send her to. I definitely don’t have this condition and I am not an expert on how the drugs work, I am sure they are vital, however, it brought it to mind that we, as grown ups are encouraged to live in a grey world as it will cause us less pain. It is for the safest.
BUT….I don’t want to live in the safe grey world anymore. I haven’t quite figured out what exactly the colourful world will be but I know I want to be in it.
I think what makes us human as opposed to another type of species is our ability to be creative. I have always believed in creativity but feel like I have been like a catholic hiding in a priest hole from the protestant overlords who condemned the beautiful icons and painting in churches, in that I have had to hide it. Creativity is the lifeblood which courses through us, it brings about new inventions, it brings about ways to communicate and it also brings fun into our lives. Humans without fun are those strange ‘Dementor’ creatures JK Rowling invented as jailors in the Harry Potter books. They have no fun and they suck the lifeblood out of anyone they lock up. The Victorian ‘Captains of Industry’ brought many things into our lives which are good but they also needed to keep the majority of the population as dull drones. They needed a few people to pop up and be creative but the masses needed to be kept in their place and what did that best was to strangle any fun from them and banish creativity. I think we are still living in this kind of society. Well I’m not anymore!
My Mum asked me last week as I brought her back from a hospital appointment, why are did you get a new puppy when your life is so busy and stressful? My answer was simple, because I knew it would bring me joy and I am not putting off enjoying my life any longer. It is true I don’t have the wisdom of an eighty year old to look back on my life but I do have the experience of watching five eighty year olds and one ninety year old navigate their lives in these latter stages. They all have slightly different outlooks but all of them live their lives in fear. There are different fears amongst them but it freezes all them all into inactivity. They are so fearful, all they seek is the greyness of their perceived safety. Maybe I will feel the same at their ages but I want to live a great life in between. This line from the Shawshank Redemption always makes me think:
“I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really: Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
You don’t really have to guess which choice I am going to take.
PS. The puppy is great and does make me smile every single day, she has been quite hard work though but I wouldn’t have missed the experience for anything.
