When There's No Turning Back

A Path Through the Wilderness

Even with the highest development and liberation, the person comes up against the real despair of the human condition. Indeed, because of that development his eyes are opened to the reality of things; there is no turning back to the comforts of a secure and armored life.

— Ernest Becker, Denial of Death

You have always featured yourself to be a seeker of meaning. This quest has defined your journey in search of a Truth that would help you make sense of things. But you have also thought of yourself as a truth-teller, and the older you become, the more reality grows to be nearly more than you can bear. At times, this feels like regression leaving you to ponder whether things have really become that much worse—politics, the environment, human nature—or is it that you have become less able to take refuge in illusion? Perhaps, this time, it is both.

What is Spiritual Aging if not about becoming increasingly willing to be honest with yourself about what you had previously denied? Inconveniently awake, one can no longer find the gift or lesson, let alone the meaning of life in environmental disaster, war, humanitarian crises, or anything about many politicians and most anything in the news. Rather than grow despondent or check out altogether, your only recourse is to ask the philosopher’s perennial question: How, then, are we to live?

Ernest Becker, in his 1973 classic Denial of Death, offers insight that provides a path through the wilderness. Becker’s counsel is to face the truth leaving nothing out then mitigate your despair with something you can control. In other words, a project. Becker notes that by doing so, one’s life becomes “a duty of cosmic heroism.” Easier said than done, to be simultaneously a seeker of meaning and a truth-teller is not for the weak-hearted.

How to make a start? Begin anywhere with anything. Is there something that calls to you that you’d judged too insignificant or too hard? Stop worrying about whether it’s really your ultimate purpose, or whether it’s enough. Choose something that you can dig into with an open mind and heart. Don’t judge or second-guess yourself—start anywhere. Start now.

Prepare to be surprised as you discover that in doing so, you set forces in motion that will bring you fresh hope, insights and courage. Hold the reins of your project loose and let it flow. Create your own meaning, one word, one stitch, one act of kindness, one interesting thing at a time.

Adapted from Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life