No More Dying?

A compelling view of the future is the realm of the artist. It requires great imagination on one hand. But it is also the realm of the child, who uniquely think only of this particular moment, not the end or the big picture. And this “nowness” becomes a picture of the future. Of the eternal.  

This nowness also happens to older people, especially when nearing death. There is a revert backward in aging toward where we start, like a toddler simply lost in play in the sandbox. That toddler, like the dying, think little about how all things are coming together.  

Instead, there is only the moment. 

Aging elderly have this sense of acute present-mindedness. Sometimes to a detriment, the elderly can get caught up in the current situation of their life only (aches, pains, worries, what meal is coming up). 

In the ages between toddler and dying, we must give up the certainty and protection of such a present-minded state. We are introduced to the realms of past and future. Regret and worry become real. And we are left to negotiate with time a version of the future we can agree on and hope for.  

“We are a kid twice and an adult once.” It’s what my friend’s grandma used to say. She’s onto something. This reality of our aging future can inform our “adult” choices now, especially knowing this growing backward effect of aging is universally understood and experienced. 

We will move out of the independence of adulthood and back to the dependence of our childhood. We will grow away from what is familiar, protected, known, and back to magical wonder. As we age, we will get blissfully engaged again with doing nothing much, and loving it, much like a young child. 

Why does life loop back like this? 

What are we to learn from this process of dying? How can it enlighten and inform our choices now? Dying reminds us to be critical of progress. Moths and rust eventually destroy most things. What “progress” we make in our prime adult lives will inevitably enter the process of dying. 

Still, old age is almost universally heralded as an honor, a sign of blessing. Why? Because there is something about our future that is essentially tied to this process of our dying. 

We don’t get to the next phase or dimension of life without first going through this portal of death. Similar to birth, where every human being must come through the same portal in—the female womb [there is to date no other way in], death is the only way out.

It is the necessary portal out of this world and into the next. We do not evolve our way there. In fact, if anything, the process of dying is a deterioration, a de-evolving of progress, a going backward. At some point in our journey, we reach the pinnacle of our experience. After which we must come back down.

The process of dying eventually calls us down.  

Some make that journey slowly, others come hammering down out of control. Most fight it. But it happens. And it must. At some point you can evade death no longer. It is coming. It will come. Accept it. Now. But remember: death is not the end! It is merely our portal out.