Avus offers a positive reaction towards one of the disadvantages of getting old. Ancients must often face an MRI scan in the “tunnel” which, although not painful, is definitely not pleasant. Avus says transcendental meditation helped him through.
For me this form of mind control may have arrived too late since one needs to practice its strictures beforehand and that would take time. But it does point the way towards something all ancients may consider. That of attitude.
It’s a truism to say we’re all living longer. Less well acknowledged is that most of us will pay a price for this. Even if we hold illness at bay we are likely to become physically enfeebled. There will be activities we once enjoyed that are now beyond us. It’s human nature to regret this. And thus we moan.
Another truism is that moaning is a lousy basis for conversation and conversation is one of the pleasures still available to those who are old and decrepit. But what’s to talk about? Our daily experiences have been foreshortened; there’s a limit the younger members of our family and/or social circle want to hear about giving blood, time spent in waiting rooms, or the difficulties of pronouncing drug names.
We may, if we are capable, turn these humdrum events into jokes. But this is risky, a bad joke is worse than no joke. We may shift the conversational focus from ourselves to the heroics of those managing our health care – PROVIDED we do not lapse into cliché, since clichés betray their heroics. We may single out a promising abstraction – optimism, the main reason for holidays, the pleasures and perils of hard liquor – and see if that runs.
All a question of attitude. Old age is not intrinsically interesting; bear that in mind.
It is true that all types of meditation (my way just happened to be via the Transcendental route) need to have been practiced for a while beforehand to be used at will thereafter. My path was a new "fashion" back in the 1980s and also involved some extra, rather weird, ideas about levitation. But these things are like food - you enjoy some of it which you find does you good, but spit out anything you consider indigestible. "Transcend" just means going through, as "descend" and "ascend" have their usual meanings.
ReplyDeleteOne was given a single word mantra, which one never divulged and put oneself into a relaxed state by simply repeating it , allowing other thoughts to surface but ignoring them until eventually only the mantra remained and one becomes disassociated with the world (the mystics called it a state of bliss).
For years I did this for twnety minutes at the beginning and end of each day Work at that time involved me leaving home each morning and driving to an office 20 miles through rural roads. In the winter it was dark with oncoming headlights. The work was heavy and could be stressful with a bastard for a boss. But I found I was becoming more relaxed and could accomplish more at work, easily, than I had ever done.
When I retired in 1997 the daily practice fell away, but I still found that at stressful times I could settle into the mantra when needed, with beneficial effects and it has stood me in good stead in times of desolation, leading up to operations and diving down the noisy and confining scan tunnels.
I agree profoundly with you about old age. It is not something to be wished for in my opinion. I am 84, my family reduces around me, as do my friends. My wife of 63 years recently died. I knew an old lady who had reached 100, she had no one left and very little interest in her strange modern world. She wished for death.
I whimsically think we should be fitted with an "on/off switch at birth, which could go live at a certain age when it could be personally used when needed. Think of the value to society. The savings to the health services, the reductions in all state costs. Think too how, in old age, the fact that you had this simple letout beside you might mean that you never used it.
Avus: The question might be: is meditation a progressive activity or is it merely a way of blotting out or transforming disagreeable aspects of the present tense? A non-chemical way of achieving some, perhaps most, of the effects of tranquillisers or sleeping pills? By "progressive" I mean: does continued use of meditation lead to a superior version of the technique, does the meditator become a better meditator? Or is this even important?.
DeleteI ask this because as your thoughtful - and most welcome - comment proceeds it it seems to get more and more pessimistic. In short, that there are few, if any, benefits in a long life. Only debits. Hence the attractions of the on/off switch.
I am not pretending I am - in contrast - an optimist about life at 87. But neither am I a pessimist. I am merely a consumer of time as I have always been, more or less, from the age of 40. True I don't ski or knock off a mile at a time in the swimming pool. But I do write and for me writing is a progressive activity. On the whole I write better - technically, that is - than I did ten years ago. But that's only one aspect of writing. I don't limit myself to recording reality, writing allows me to exercise and express my imagination, a much more demanding exercise than mere reading. By which I am not talking about fantasy, more often it's the deeper exploration of the things around me, past, present and future. Not being satisfied with repeating so-called received wisdom (often the shortest route to the abomination known as the cliché) but showing an eagerness to tackle ideas, to test them, expand them, disprove them, and even - by way of a better understanding - to accept them. As a result, I progress. I become better informed, especially about abstract as opposed to purely factual matters.
And I can still do this aged 87.
I'd like to think my sudden decision to take up singing in 2016 was a result of applying my imagination. It wasn't and its unexpectedness still puzzles me; I can't take credit for that first step. But I can take credit for now being able to sing, and, as time passes, sing better. Singing lessons are progressive; in this sense I am superior to myself as I was in, say, 2015. I revel in using what time I have left to this end.
Wasted muscles may cut us off from the physical world. Thinking remains a viable route to new views.