Life: For All Those Before Me.

With my most recent encounters with the elderly, I get a feeling they’re trying to forewarn me, trying to prepare me, pass across certain message but the message cannot be portrayed in words. And even if it were, while they might have the message to pass across, I don’t have the receptors to extract the message.

I’m reading a book from 160AD, just after studying ancient Rome and Constantinople. This exposure to aged wisdom is severely coloring my thinking but that thinking gets incredibly enhanced when I interact with the really elderly, in flesh and person.

What comes next for them is death. Really. They know it, I know it. We don’t bring it up. But I silently mourn for them because I know soon they would be no more. They stretch to me to remember them by impacting the highlights of their lives to my membrane in a few minutes of conversation. Eager they are to give me the most valuable wisdom they’ve amassed, wisdom that doesn’t betray them but can make a difference for me. In moments like these, I grab a pen and paper, go silent and write like hell. Making sure each word gets captured because when the elderly go into wisdom sharing, it’s like opening a tap for a few seconds. Get what you may. Don’t ask them to recall what they shared. You either caught it or you didn’t.

Most recent conversation being last night, she shared with me her mom died sixteen minutes after she was born and for all her life, she did not celebrate her birthday and now she’s aged and closer to moving on. But God does love me correct? And I said, yes, God loves you.

I never lose. She said. I either win or I learn.

She said, those with pain have memories. But I have no pain, and hence no memory. I would rather have their pain, that way I have something to remember, but I have nothing.

I felt this incredible chill come over me, as I placed my hands on the side of my face like I was in the presence of such a profundity where the mind was unworthy to exist. There I was, surrendered, susceptible, tender, submitted to whatever molding was happening.

I can sense her yearning but I had no receptors to communicate back. So I sat still, awed and silent.

What comes next is moving on. For her back into the void from which we once all came from. For me, back on the journey to old age.

At the end of the conversation, I told her I would always remember her by the words she’s shared with me. She prayed for me. My eyes wanted to water. My mind accepted the moment and moved on.

And, here I am. Now, thinking.

What’s the difference between the aged and the aging? And I realize this:

Words cannot replace experience.

The accumulated experience they try to interpret, knowledge they’ve decided is useful and important to surviving life — they try to communicate that knowledge but human words and language fail. Knowledge that transcends human known language. Like a picture broken into fragments with a few random pieces given to you, of what sense could one make of such randomized piece?

The distance in years and the lack of experience on the youth multiplies the gap. Is this why the young (without intentional effort) are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the elderly?

You hear the wisdom but lack the life experience to relate to their wisdom. You have no memory relevant to what’s shared with you. It’s like being described a cafe you’ve never been to, a cafe you might go to in the next year or the next five years, while expecting you to recognize this cafe whenever life takes you to the city where the cafe is located. How likely are you to remember the description many years later? Do you know how many other cafes you’d encounter before you reach this one? Chances are more likely you’d walk past this cafe with no memory whatsoever.

But you would do good to remember what is shared because your future has just been described to you. And those prepared, surpass.

I asked an elderly man what does it take for one person to be nice to the other? He said based on studies done that he knows of, it’s not DNA but environment. Does DNA control environment? Doesn’t DNA control environment? I might never know.

Your mistakes are already waiting for you. If you continue without preparations, the mistakes become inevitable. If you forget the knowledge impacted on you, the mistakes become inevitable. You make mistake, you lose something. Often times, you lose years correcting mistake and finding your way back to track. Your mistakes are already waiting for you. But remembering shared knowledge would see you through.

There’s a few questions below, I don’t know answers to these questions but I have to. We are all heading somewhere, some things are not part of the questions we could debate. Like how we have to breathe air to live. Or how we are heading somewhere even if we don’t want to. Or how our brain was perfectly formed without our help or opinion. Or why we are or what we are. There are certain questions outside our allowance. But we are here for a reason and the sooner we accept what’s outside our allowance and understand what we can accomplish with the perfect system we find ourselves in, the closer we get to showing some gratitude for experiencing this majestic creation (the planets, world and everything in it) at the level of the most advanced creation.

Why shouldn’t you fail? Really. There’s a bunch of humans. Soon our era (1930–2100) would be wiped off and a new era (2100 and beyond) would roam the earth. Why shouldn’t you fail? It’s important to know. I cannot have the option to fail because I cannot have the option to fail. I just cannot fail. Why should I fail (in life)?, of what use is it to fail (to self)? I self ascribe a mental condition that cannot see nor contemplate failing.

Where does your journey begin? It’s important to know. From where did you start? Did you start? I know I’m on a journey, mine began from my grandfathers. Before I was, my journey was.

If you lost your way, what would it look like? Gradual wreckage. Eventually Destruction of what is. Lost hope on any chance of survival.

How do you uphold your values?

Some of us were born with a gift, most of us have to work for it.

How do you maintain your inborn gift? What does maintenance look like?

For talent you have to work for, is it a natural want or do you have to override self?

How long can your mental strength last?

What happens when you’re mentally tired?

How long can you go without excitement?

How long can you dig without reaching water?

Can you dig?

Will you dig?

How do you prepare? For anything?

What determines where you go and what you focus on?

Do you have a plan? Did you have a plan? Have you been planning?

Why should you succeed? Because I have to succeed. I can’t not succeed. Of what life is life if I lived and not succeed in the life I did live. There is no version of living made available to me without succeeding so of that which I’m here to accomplish, I shall accomplish because soon I would be no more. But of now that I am here, that which is mine to do, which is all I can do, that I will do.

We sleep, we wake. Is that all there is to life? Well, Yes. Just like a daze, an illusion maybe, the years will go on by. You will age and be aged. And you will be gone. So next time you see that sun come up, run, run and run. Accomplish all you can because the sun did not come up for the fun of it. The sun will continue to rise, but you won’t. So now that you can, you absolutely should.

Why should you succeed?

With Love,

Famous Steve.