ON TURNING FIFTY EIGHT

Turning fifty-eight is not an overnight experience; in fact it takes fifty-eight years. From day one, you begin the attaining of wisdom, so by the time you are in your fifties your wisdom is the accumulated life experience you have seen through. Memory is what separates you from younger people. You can remember back far longer. It also connects you to younger people, because you’ve been there, felt that. Memory is what you have been, and what you are. It also features in what you become, how you relate to people and events. Loss of memory can be argued to be a de-humanising process. Does that give you less value than someone who can remember everything? Who gets to decide that? Friends, relatives or the law? The whole notion of value is suspect. Value as in a productive member of society? Or value as in a person who can get the most out of life, one who can experience enjoyment and satisfaction. You need memory for both these alternatives. What is your value if you are one of the world’s twenty five million refugees? Or of a baby who is born with AIDS? Babies might not have memory, but they have the potential for memory. They have the possibility to be cured of AIDS, (in the future), as do refugees have the potential to be repatriated. So maybe one’s value is related to the actions of the rest of society.

Getting of wisdom is what maturing is all about, but without compassion it is a flawed exercise, and ones life becomes conducive to jealousy, self -loathing, anger and war. War begins with the individual, and cannot exist where there is compassion. Terrorism exist because there is too much love, and not enough
compassion. Love can be misguided and even inappropriate. Compassion is the best basis for love, individually and globally.

Fifty eight is not a lot of summers, or springs. When I was in primary school I calculated that I would be fifty-three in the year two thousand. I tried to imagine being fifty-three and still being me but I couldn’t. When I turned fifty I didn’t consider myself as ‘old’. I probably won’t when I turn sixty, or even seventy. Part of being one of the baby boomers, in my group of contemporaries was the idea of maintaining optimum health. We meditated, when to regular yoga classes, jogged and cycled. And of course we were all vegetarians. Those of us who stuck to these ideals reached fifty without any of the degenerative problems that our parents expected and suffered. Despite my disability, my health is very good. I am still careful with my diet, eating fresh fruit and vegetables, and often organic produce which is the food I was brought up with, way back when. Fast food is not part of my regime, though I have sometimes gone to McDonalds to use their toilets. I eat fish (well no-ones perfect, and I know the world’s fish stocks are in a dire state). Linseed oil would be a better alternative for getting omega-3 fatty acids. I take antioxidants as well as ginko, because I live in big, polluted Sydney, under a flight path, though thankfully on the coast.
Fifty-eight is no big deal. I am happy, sad, worried and content living on a pension that is below the poverty line, with my enchanting wonder woman. Visualisation is a powerful tool I often apply. One day we will have a government worthy of its magnificent people; one that doesn’t consider compassion to be a dirty word.