The philosophy and spirituality of aging

Philosophy & Spirituality of Aging (continued) Meaningfulness

“Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.” - Dalai Lama

On Having an Ageless Soul With a view on bolstering good and positive thoughts about growing old, I recently read Thomas Moore’s newest book, Ageless Soul: Living a Full Life with Joy and Purpose. I’ve always been a big fan of Moore, who is currently 77 years of age. Two of his books I have read repeatedly, among more than 20 he authored over the years, are A Life at Work, and Care of the Soul, which was a 44-week NY Times best-seller back in the early 1990s, and still resonates today. I also enjoyed A Religion of One’s Own, his previous book, published in 2015. READ MORE

Think Deeply, It May Do Some Good As I have noted in a good number of previous posts, early old age, which varies for some, ranging anywhere from 45 to 65, brings lots of consternation about who you really are and what you are doing with yourself in work and elsewhere. You come to an intersection where you think more deeply about where your compass is pointing, and it’s almost like going back in time to when you were first trying to figure out what you were going to do with your life, maybe even as far back as elementary school. READ MORE

A Relatively Brief Review of My Studies on Aging I’ve been studying what it means to grow old, from philosophical, psychological, sociological and spiritual perspectives. I have developed a substantial personal library on aging. I’ve been reading through concepts about meaningful aging espoused by such authors as Thomas Moore, Joan Chittister, James Hillman, Gene Cohen, Carol Orsborn, Lars Tornstam, Carl Jung, and many others. I’ve started to cover the world of work and leisure during the last third of life, and the phases of inner change many of us go through when we reach our sixties. I’ve also delved into theology and spiritual practice, including Zen, Christianity, and Buddhism. READ MORE

Remembrance Thinking & Character Development in Old Age In “The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain,” the late Gene D. Cohen, geriatric researcher on positive aging, wrote about a “summing- up” phase in life that typically hits people in their late sixties and into their seventies and eighties. Cohen identified this phase as “a time of recapitulation, resolution, and review.” Recapitulation, according to Google dictionary, is “an act or instance of summarizing and restating the main points of something.” Resolution is “a firm decision to do or not to do something.” And review is “a formal assessment or examination of something with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary.” Let’s call recapitulation, resolution, and review the 3Rs of Old Age. READ MORE

Attempting to Piece Together the Meaning of Life Puzzle: Efforts to Know More My self-guided research on the philosophy, psychology, sociology and spirituality of aging has taken me along numerous streams of valid and authoritative information. Perhaps I should not say self-guided, however. Many of those streams are discovered in the reference sections of the papers and books I’ve been reading, as well as, of course, where the search engines take me. Yet, there’s no mentor or teacher involved. So, it’s also fair to say that the work is substantially autodidactic, which means self- guided. READ MORE

Contemplating Consciousness: How Our Awareness Speaks Volumes of Questions without Answers The simple definition of consciousness provided by Merriam-Webster is “the quality or state of being aware, especially of something within oneself.” And, of course, when you look a bit deeper into that definition and attempt to further define and question why and how we have consciousness, and what its role is in the universe, you can easily find yourself perplexed. READ MORE

Growing Up a Good Catholic Growing up in a blue-collar, mostly Catholic, close-knit neighborhood where everyone knew everyone took on an aura and profoundness that shaped me deeply. We lived on the same street that housed the convent, rectory and elementary school under the umbrella of St. Francis of Assisi and the good pastor in charge of it all, Monsignor Valenti, a very odd figure, in my mind, but a true priest by way of the honorable version of Catholicism. He would be considered a rare and extraordinarily moral and celibate bird today. READ MORE

Burying the Past: A Dark/Bright Story and a Saving Dream The darkened gray street lined by dirty concrete curbs and sidewalks fixed itself into my internal being, like a young man communing with some form of nature’s beauty, except this was urban ugliness, lacking any positive vibe, consisting only of more forthcoming mediocrity — a future devoid of substance. READ MORE

Sermon from a Non-religious Old Guy Of all the issues and challenges that erupt when you reach your 60s, the one area of concern that seems to be extraordinarily prominent in my thoughts is whether my life has achieved any true and authentic meaning and purpose. And, of course, everyone has their own interpretation of what is meaningful and purposeful in their lives. READ MORE

What Shapes Us? I believe in the theory that my physical body is only a holder of an individualized, eternal, inner core that is essentially part of a greater good and divinity, but I can’t prove it. Our bodies eventually disintegrate into bones buried under ground, stored in mausoleums, or burned and grounded by cremation services into ashes. Our souls, our inner selves, however, never die and go on after death into something extraordinarily stunning. Such a belief is soothing, a calming balm in a world of confusion and unanswered mysteries. READ MORE

My Two Diametrically Opposed Near-Death Experiences What I Learned When Faced With The Prospect of Dying Sooner Rather than Later There were two times in which I was near death. Both involved hospital stays, and each brought opposing ideas about dying. The first happened when I was 31. The second was about three years later at the age of 34. Since then, I’ve had a few more debilitating and serious hospital stays but none as harrowing as those two near-death experiences in my early thirties. READ MORE

Philosophy & Spirituality of Aging (CONTINUED) Meaningfulness

“Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.” - Dalai Lama

My Two Diametrically Opposed Near- Death Experiences What I Learned When Faced With The Prospect of Dying Sooner Rather than Later There were two times in which I was near death. Both involved hospital stays, and each brought opposing ideas about dying. The first happened when I was 31. The second was about three years later at the age of 34. Since then, I’ve had a few more debilitating and serious hospital stays but none as harrowing as those two near-death experiences in my early thirties. READ MORE