December 15, 2024

I have come to the conclusion that I have entered a new phase in my life, and that I am trying to adjust my behavior and expectations so that they are realistic and age-appropriate. I characterize this phase as preparing to die, and this involves an immense amount of acceptance as well as personal growth. While my consciousness and intellect seems to still operate at what I would call an adult level, my body is very clearly diminished in its capacities. God forbid I would have a fatal disease and a terminal diagnosis and this would all be more urgent and real. But the fact is that I am 84 years old and significantly weaker, limited, and slowed, and sooner or later I will stop breathing, lose consciousness, and no longer exist as a self-aware person occupying space on planet Earth. I have even come to imagine that there is some aspect of my being that is present in me, that preceded and existed before there was a me as such, and that actually may continue as an energetic entity without there being this Bruce as either consciousness or as an embodiment. Soul or spirit is what this entity is popularly referred to as, but those words really don’t have specific enough meaning for me to use them casually. But it is something beyond individual molecules, although if molecules turn out to be “alive” and energetic, which they must be, then I really have no idea what I’m talking about.

In any event, in the same way as if I had a terminal illness, I have a terminal is-ness and I know it, can feel it, appreciate it, accept it…and almost welcome it. I have separation anxiety, but not really non-existence anxiety. The universe is simply too immense in all dimensions, but especially time, for me to expect that my personal self-consciousness has any likelihood of persistence beyond my extinguishment. The drop of mist or spray that momentarily appears as an independent entity on the crest of an ocean wave and then falls back as H2O united with the great oceans is still the clearest analogy I can find to the notion of what my individual existence is. It’s actually a nice feeling when I perceive it in that manner.

And so I lay abed a lot, reading, listening to music, eschewing politics, challenged by how to fill the time, irrelevant and unproductive, comfortably breathing, knowing, being, appreciating. I am almost happy.