26 Years

When I was a child I can remember wishing I was older. It would seem, through the litany of anecdotal evidence, that this is an innate aspect of youth and naivety - yearning for and pedestaling the days when you can drive, then when you can drink, then when you have your own place. And then, such is life, it all happens. And like the cliché goes, you long for the days when you were young - when responsibility was absent, when the hours were simpler, and even perhaps when you knew less. Ignorance really was bliss, and it marked the days of youth. The profundity of this pendulum mindscape is of great interest to me. Frankly it's odd and worth thinking about. It would seem it serves no purpose biologically. Our dopamine systems are predicated on forward progress, yet, for most of us, at some point, we desire the past, which would appear to be the antithesis of progression. I've understood at least part of this in the last few years. We don't always want what we can't yet have, we also want what we can't ever have. When simplified, a heuristic emerges, regardless of tense, we just want. 

My 26th birthday is today, and nostalgic as I can be, I'm making an effort to juxtapose nostalgia with the same wonder, desire, and hopefulness that I once felt as a kid, with reference to the future. And it's not as though I lack those frames of mind now, but I do feel that the intensity is anomalous compared to my youth. The juxtaposition of two competing forces creates a duality, and within duality, there is a center line. That center line is balance. Ying and Yang. We wouldn't contain an emotive sense of nostalgia if we weren't supposed to tap into it. And likewise, we wouldn't contain positive feedback through forward progress, if we weren't supposed to tap into that. In other words, they're both necessary. Therefore I'll use both to frame my thoughts in this incoming soliloquy, as I age another year.

When I think of the past with fondness and longing, often I think about ease. Life wasn't as serious back then. Whether that was a result of not taking it seriously or not knowing enough to take it seriously, remains to be debated, but factually, it wasn't as serious to me. Maybe that was why a birthday had more weight back then. Maybe that lack of seriousness held open a door to enjoy simple pleasures in life more. But I also think about humans and I remind myself that for tens of thousands of years we lived in groups where we knew everyone from birth to death. We saw the same people every day. We lived in the same area our whole lives. Life was predictable in some sense, habit tends to remove many variables, excluding disease and war. Perhaps, when considering the past, well beyond my own past, life was simply less complex. Less serious? I'm not sure. But less complex? Yes indeed. The purpose, biologically, functionally, of having an ability to analyze the past, separate from the instinct to long for it, is so that we may return to it and extrapolate lessons, that we may not have been mature enough or engaged enough to extrapolate at some given time in the past. In this sense, I do find value in looking at my past, and my extrapolation would be this - strive to simplify, to de-complexify, to habituate life, without losing sight of curiosity, progress and fulfillment. Toe that line of ying and yang, find balance. 

When I think of the future with fondness and longing, I tend to think about experiences that I've yet to have but one day may be possible. The experience of summiting a 20,000 foot mountain. The experience of stepping foot in Iceland. The experience of standing on an alter, as the love of my life struts down the isle, bashful and beautiful. The experience of holding my newborn child in my arms for the first time. The experience of seeing my children happy and healthy. These are easily juxtaposed with the contemplation of future suffering, which holds a routine, and very capacious position in my subconscious. The experience of losing my parents. The experience of war and famine. The experience of disease. The experience of my own death. As a man, with dreams and aspirations, with goals and a vision for my family, all the potential branches on life's great tree are exciting, tantalizing and paralyzing. I again go back to thinking about humans and the staples ingrained in our culture, and it becomes ever present to me as I age why we're told to find a life-partner, cultivate friendships, care for our parents, and be grateful for good days when they are present. And it is this generational knowledge that informs my path for the future, regardless of which branch of the tree I may find myself on. The words of the Desiderata speak to me in my brightest imaginings and in my darkest forecasts - "nurture strength of spirit to shield you in times of sudden misfortune... and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul."

On this day, my birthday, I feel overwhelming gratitude. In many ways I shouldn't be alive. I have much to be thankful for. On this day I feel hopeful. Thousands of years lay beneath my feet, and many millions fought and died for the life that I get to live now. Life is not without struggle, pain, and loss. And we mustn't expect it to be. But on this day I feel prepared. As I look out the window to the waning sunlight on the evening of my 26th birthday, the vibrancy of greens and blues and reds and oranges invoke a deep sense of belonging. It's as though I am in the right place at the right time. It's as if I'm standing on that thin line between ying and yang. On this day, I found balance.