I will start today’s topic on Aging with a question. It’s a question everyone seems to struggle with and matters very much for the purpose of understanding the topic. What is aging?
Body decomposition.
Maturing like a fine wine?
Back pains.
All are legitimate definitions. In fact, the concept is heavily open for interpretation, but how is this so? Can anyone put a strong definition on this seemingly so important topic?
Ravages of time overcoming the body’s healing system.
It gets tangled up between the physical and the perceptions we have of it. That itself is a heavily variable phenomenon.
I guess aging reminds us we are not infinite and everything changes.
Renewal processes slow down.
And of course, it leads to death. So that comes into peoples thoughts of it. Which would make it the ultimate foil to underscore the meaning of life itself.
What does it mean to be aged? If I’m 40 and as spry as I was at 30 and you have extensive health complications, am I the same age as you? Even though we share the same calendar age?
You’d be younger.
It is a lot about looks. Especially how society feeds us the message to look young to be worthy.
I feel like I have always felt, but my body is aging. People react to me differently.
Yes. It’s more about how people react to you then how you may feel yourself.
So, aging is a largely subjective experience?
You can see young people in years with old body’s and usually minds to go with them.
I know many who are proud of their grey hair and laugh lines.
Yes, some people are young curmudgeons.
My wifes grey hair and laugh lines just accentuate her beauty. I have seen her pictures from over the years, and she has just grown to be more who she is than anything else.
Consider this. Aging as the acquisition of increasing numbers of characteristics and potential disorder possibly leading to collapse of the system. Aging can lead to mental health issues even when its physical impact is mild.
We get too complex to hold together? Yes, exactly. We lose our center. In a sense and perhaps literally, we lose heart. The majority of supposed symptoms of aging are acquired traits. This is why there has been no single cure for old age related complications. It doesn’t manifest in the same pattern between any two people.
How do we un-acquire them? The same way we acquired them in the first place. Aging starts in the mind. We developed habits of response to our environment and people and conditions existing in it. These habits are often based on psychologically traumatic events.
My mind gets foggy sometimes, but I find if I do some yoga and stretching then I am sharp again. I think it has to do with blood flow. Indeed, and there are some very old practices that are holistic enough that they act as at least a partial reset of our systems. It actually relates to the reticuloendothelial system. The system of connective tissue that runs through every structure in our body. This is perhaps the single largest system in our body though I am certain there are other factors as well.
They are talked about in Tai Chi a lot. Yes. Tai Chi and yoga are both based on and include an understanding of this system even having their own versions of similar therapeutic practices. Acupressure and things like that.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~