often, when we take a moment to contemplate, we wonder about the proverbial meaning of life. we’ve lived 6, 7, 8 decades. what does it all mean?one wise man, joseph campbell, wrote, “people say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. ... i think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
to be alive, to feel the inner resonance continues throughout a life span. in our elderhood we have time to make that connection between our outer, physical life and the inner being, that still, small voice that dwells in each of us. it is the inner core, the deepest truth, with which we have the opportunity to live. when that connection is made, we can, in campbell’s well-known words, follow our bliss.
then each day, each breath, is experienced in its fullest meaning. each tear that is shed carries the joy and the grief of decades. each smile holds the moments of gladness and the moments of embarrassment and shyness. each sob holds the truth of experience along with each peal of laughter. each moment of irritation or frustration embraces the moments of deep satisfaction.it is this sense of aliveness, of deep connection with self, that campbell so eloquently expressed, in spite of the difficulty of putting this ineffable experience into solid words. irrespective of this difficulty, we all know those moments of aliveness....a stunning sunset, a tender kiss from a beloved one, a heartbreaking moment, a compassionate encounter. as elders we have a huge archive of these experiences. they are the rapture of being alive.
another wise man, stephen hawking, reminds us that “it matters that you don’t just give up.” giving up is the antithesis of the experience of aliveness. it defeats our desire for the rapture of true connection. and hawking was the expert at ‘not giving up’. his life had meaning, just as does each of our lives.
alive with meaning, vibrating with the energy of life, we continue to grow and evolve into our elderhood.