It’s not how old you are. It’s how you are old.
– Jules Renard, French author
It’s quite hard to focus on writing my column for New Sarawak Tribune, sitting here across the magnificent Nicaragua Lake overlooking Ometepe Island with its twin volcanoes.
The wind is so strong that it blows my hair in every direction, and the sun shines brighter through the bluest of skies, the clouds seem whiter and I am reminded of a Gaughin painting where all the colours seem more intense than what you normally see.
In my morning walk today I had a dog saunter next to me for a good three quarters of my walk. Most dogs here are strays but everyone is almost like an owner so they seem well fed.
I passed two horses which looked at me curiously and were rather shy. Cows were grazing in distant pastures, and I even saw a pig snorting around a few houses. This is all so delightful to a city girl like me – I am breathing it all in and I know I shall miss it when I get back to the matrix of hustle and bustle we call the city.
Today I took a drive through bumpy roads to my 10 acres of land and saw our eco sustainable community centre being slowly built. Walked through the jungles, and stream and the place where the orchards were supposed to come up and I had to pinch myself to believe that my dream of a farm land was being realised.
It looks like there is so much work that needs to go in and it seems so far away until everything is complete as I see it in my eye. But you know something, it is never the destination that is important, it is the journey that makes life so worthwhile. Because destinations will always keep changing, so we need to savour the journey.
The little triumphs, disappointments, the negotiations, the laughter, the fun, the loves, the desires, the peace, the passions we find along the way. And we need to have our adventures all the time, it’s all that makes life worth living. To never settle. To always ask, “What’s Next?”
So many people I know think they are doing all the right things and do what has been dictated to them that gives them brownie points in social standing. They have gotten married to one person for the longest time. Check! (Although they may be utterly unhappy in that marriage and the marriage is merely a show, they still think they have done right with the façade they put on.)
They have bought the perennial ‘achievements’ – a big house, a few big cars, and some seniority in their company. Check! (Though why they still feel empty inside, and they still feel they need a bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger salary to keep buying more, more, more just to validate themselves to more and more eyes … it just does not ever end and they wonder why they feel suffocated in the deepest, darkest recesses of their hearts and minds.)
They say and do the right things according to whatever the media and authorities tell them to do. Check! (But they look at the daredevils who don’t and despise them. And deep down wonder why they fear those who are fearless. And they don’t dare face the truth of why they feel this way.)
They need adventures. That’s what is missing from their lives.
Words are spells and we are constantly thought to think ‘old’ and feel ‘old’ and getting old is associated with frailty and feebleness. Emphasis is on youth. Youth sells. Or so we are told. We spend a lot to ‘look young’. People over 50 have this apologetic laugh (especially Asians, and especially women) when they are asked their age.
It’s almost as if they are embarrassed at getting older. And that’s ridiculous. Because the most important thing happens after 50. You get clarity to see the world exactly as it is. You stop buying the bullshit that advertising tries to push down your throat. You are not so gullible anymore because you don’t need validation anymore. You start taking control over your body, your soul and your mind.
And the powers that be that have set the entire system on making you nothing more than a consumer and a producer, suddenly have no use for you. So, they want you to fade away. And only you have the power to allow that. You choose to fade away or you choose to get better, stronger, wiser and start living your life all over again – this time at your own terms.
Start your adventure today. Don’t be defeated by the concept of age. Because that’s what it really is – a concept.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at beatrice@ibrasiagroup.com
