When I was younger, I worried about my next big step in life. As I got older, I realized that my next great stop in life was probably death. So I decided to be a better person while I could. It’s a huge challenge but keeps me forever engaged and creative.
I don’t dwell on it, but getting close to the end has altered my perspective on life. I’ve worked to accept death and the reluctant acceptance of the fact that everyone I know and love, human and animal, will die. Some already have. I see it not as a horror or terror but as an integral part of life. Without it, our lives would have little real meaning. As the clock ticks, I work harder to be healthy, happy, creative, and compassionate. Time is running short.
As Joseph Campbell predicted in one of his beautiful books, growing older is already one of the great experiences of my life, along with having a child, meeting Maria, moving to the country and our farm, doing some real good, and living with nature and animals for the first time.
My blog is my memoir, my creative center, my story. Almost every week, someone messages me to say something I wrote should be reprinted in the New York Times or that I should write a book about my life here. This is flattering and kind, but I always answer those messages similarly: the blog is my book now, my living memoir, where my writing belongs.
This is where the story began, and this will be where the story ends.
I began my writing career as a copyboy at the New York Times and will end it as a blogger at Bedlam Farm, New York, where I should be and want to be. I have at least learned where I belong: writing every day, loving Maria, Orson, Rose, Red, Simon, and Zip, exploring my spiritual direction, and doing good when I can. My life is full to the gills now, no longer empty.
I have gotten wiser as I’ve aged. It isn’t because I’m brilliant, but because in 76 years, I’ve experienced many things, some of which stick and some of them teach. I’d have to be oblivious and blind not to have picked up something along the way.
When I was young, I never thought of doing good for others. I mainly thought of doing good for myself and my family. I didn’t know about death; I thought about advancing through life, being more critical, wealthier, and successful. I had the American disease; life is about more and more, without end. The idea of riding around the ocean in a Super Yacht is sickening to me.
Somewhere in that somewhat twisted and troubled brain, I wanted more, and as I edged toward 60, I took the plunge and decided to change my life. Instead of fighting anxiety, I chose to use it to good effect – and get healthy.
My life really began 10 or 15 years ago when I ran to a mountain with two beautiful dogs and read Thomas Merton’s writings and journals for a year along with Labs named Julius and Stanley. I had stepped onto my spiritual path, what Joseph Campbell calls the hero journey. Everything was different after that, even though the journey has been slow, challenging, and complex. I loved being alone; I loved the silence. I’ve read a score of wonderful writers and thinkers and learned from everyone, from Merton to St. Augustine to St. Terese.
I never think of being immortal or of an afterlife. My primary goal is to leave the world a better place than I wound it, no matter how small my gift. It is also about being a better human. Now.
Spiritual direction means turning inward, facing the truth about myself, and understanding how and what to change. It takes work. It is satisfying.
Maria has changed my life in every way. I have never loved or been loved in this way before. It is more than transformative; it is, for me, a miracle.
It turns out that I’m good at doing good—small acts of great kindness—which makes me feel better than I have ever felt about myself. Something inside of me wanted to come out. This is about finding meaning in my brief stay on the earth. I don’t care much about money anymore, which is good because I don’t have much.
I have nothing like the million dollars I’ve been told I should have tucked away for old age. I’ll take my chances.
I’d rather be happy and content for as long as I can.
What I’ve learned:
Be open and authentic. People will support me, challenge me, love me, hurt me. The process of being open was complicated for me. There are a lot of angry and disturbed people in the world. I know I was one of them and still am in some ways, although they constantly shrink. Spiritual study has been a miracle for me, a powerful, healing, and compassionate direction in life. My anger is continually shrinking; as I learn to love myself, I am learning that I don’t need to hurt others, no matter how cruel.
Learning: I am late learning but quickly love it as I grow older. When I stop learning, that will be the first death. The real one will hardly matter. Spirituality is where my learning truly began.
I’ve learned to ask for nothing else. As I appreciate what I have, I need less all the time.
For me, the point of spirituality is happiness, not worship. I have what I need, and I ask for nothing more.
I’ve learned that love came to me when I opened up to it, and it has led to more and more love – of my life, my farm, the natural world, my dogs and donkeys, and even my new barn cat. Campbell says animals often appear on a hero’s journey, “magical helpers” easing and usually guiding the way. I have found that to be very accurate in my life; animals have marked the passages of my life. Zip is the newest Magical Helper. I had many before him.
I’ve learned that life is often a storm, and I want to be a strong tree in the storm. I picture the image when I need to, and Maria does the same in her work and her beautiful embrace of trees as an artist. I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it.
I’ve learned to face my anger inward and not try to hurt the people who might hurt me. It only hurts me more. They suffer, too.
I’ve learned that security and peace come from inside, not outside. No politician will govern my emotions and feelings of peace.
I’ve learned that sharing my life has helped me grow stronger, wiser, and softer. I can’t fight anger with anger, only with understanding and compassion. I am forced, often against my will, to interact with human beings, not just screens. Every cruel message is something for me to learn from.
I’ve learned my purpose for existing: being a better human and seeking out small acts of great kindness that make lives better for some people. It is never too late.
I’ve learned that an artist has been hiding in me for most of my life. The artist is now coming out and finding joy and purpose. It just took a while.
Photography has liberated the artist in me and given me a powerful new way to tell my story and see the world anew. Maria has taught me how to see things all around me that I was blind to, from love itself to the life of a mushroom and spider. Her capacity for love is boundless. I can’t love her enough. She has saved my life.
I’ve learned not to turn myself again into a battlefield and see the world as a conflict between good and evil. Our culture increasingly sees people who differ as evil. That is the end of thinking. We are all humans, as I learned again and again when I talked to people face to face and not just through a computer online. Evil can quickly turn to excellent and good to evil. I’m learning never to judge people I don’t know, especially in the new culture called social media. I always remember that I am talking to strangers, not friends and neighbors or people who know me.
That’s enough for one day. And it’s not the end of learning for me; I hope never to get smug about it or never to be done. It is exhausting to think about what I have learned, am learning, and have yet to learn. One of those things is humility. When I realized what I did not know, I began to understand.
