When I retired from practicing law three years ago, one of the things I proposed to do was write in this journal on a more regular basis. Now, looking at the small number of entries, I wonder what happened to my early resolve. I have continued my life-long practice of writing every morning in my private journal (the one no one else sees) and so it is not for lack of words or ideas that there are no entries here. Why then? This morning I came up with a possible reason — one that will do as good as any other. I am growing old. Now, in case you didn’t know, growing old does not happen all at once. It happens slowly and it takes some getting used to. I think that these past three years have been a transition into old age. And part of that process of transition involves a need for privacy and maybe a little bit of a dislike for the desire for attention and admiration that marked earlier periods of my life. Writing here in this public journal is, I would like to think, a form of sharing, but it is also part of that persona that I choose to project to the world. One of the most beautiful things about growing old is that the false aspects of this persona are gradually shed like a snake’s old skin in favor of a more sincere reflection of this mysterious being that I am. But it seems to me that this effort toward authenticity that I am encouraging in myself as part of growing cold, this effort needs a cool, moist, shady, private place – at least until the new skin is in place.
Growing old has not been easy. I’m just getting started in what I hope will be a long process. There is an incredible amount of learning and adjusting and accepting to be done. That process of “letting go” of illusions, images, things that we cherished, but are finding out are not all that essential, seems to be the first phase of the process. Inherent in this “dis-enchantment” is the sense that my voice and what interests me many times does not “jibe” with the strident, ranting, spirit of the age where rage is evidence of principled conviction. The second phase, the one that I am now hopefully entering into now, is the “old men ought to be explorers” phase that T.S. Eliot speaks of in his Four Quartets. Explorers of external geographies, sure, but most of all explorers of the soul, ours and others. Old age is a gift in many ways — the final opportunity for soul-making and character building. All through my life, I intuited that I was growing toward something. There was a restlessness in me that I channeled into different kinds of externally recognizable achievement. That restlessness continues into old age but the goal changes or, if I am fortunate, will disappear altogether. No longer to do but to be becomes the direction and the joy. And this is not to say I cannot yet still be useful to others with my work. But, increasingly, it is the work itself and not what I receive after it is complete, where I find fulfillment. Who knows, I may have a book or two left in me. But the books, if they come will be a natural blossoming of the soul work — a fruit of love. It is the growth of love that is the true work of old age.
