It seems that nature does not care about us as individuals. So much of what we call our life

is instinctual; we have done the same patterned thing, ran like all the others in the herd, exploring, mating, and fighting when everyone else did. 

 

When we were young, our bodies flushed with hormones; things were new, exciting, sexy, interesting, and attractive. We pushed our limits, eating and drinking nearly anything we wanted, and we would still be more or less OK the next day. But now things have changed.

 

Getting older gives me the fall perspective to write this - I was intoxicated with idealism, romance, sex, entertainment, girls, adventure, yoga, religious experiences, and God,

and seeking all of it.

 

But now, these early morning hours seem different after the party has gone on all night.

The girls look tired and plain; their make-up is smeared and smudged. They are no longer intoxicated, innocent, smooth, sweet, alluring and entertaining. Like me, they had expectations that were not met and could not be satisfied. The girls have turned into women, and all of this has also happened to us men. We adventured boldly until our ship hit some rocks, and the bilge began to leak. We pursued the objects of our desire; we got to the top of the ladder and realized it was against the wrong wall; what we thought so incredibly important, we hardly even think about, more concerned with the holes that have been ripped in the once-swelling sails of our idealism all the while our body inevitably

weathers and ages.

 

 

I paid rent for many years in the city but left my house and business and wandered out into a desert. When I look back at the ‘party’ of my youth, even when it seemed to be about God and various ideals, it was mainly about passion for something other than the desires of sex and pleasure; in other words, it was always all about myself. Now that I have sobered up, I see I was drunk on hormones, nature’s way of getting a man to procreate, and there was not that much love about much of it. Wearing the 

rose-colored glasses of intoxication, I was stupidly amazed when the world became rosy.

 

What I thought was passionate aliveness, my attraction to the form, voice, and nature of women, has changed to just an older man out in the desert, looking at the distant lights of

the young drunks and sexy couples loudly partying before a sad and inevitable dawn.

Now, I feel the heat

of the sun of aging and the chill of nights where everything is darker with time

and I know those who went before me,

must have passed this same way as they walked out into the desert

before they died.

 

I must discipline myself if I am to survive in this wasteland. Nature has changed her investment as far as this body is concerned. I am past the prime of my youth. I am no longer amongst the best breeders. I have become more sober. Life demands other fruits from my orchard; I cannot even indulge myself very much without feeling uncomfortable. I have become intimate with consequences previously unknown and not desired.

 

I still see the same temptations and recognize the same attractions—the seeds of everything I was once attracted to persist, but it is all in a different light, as different as fall is from spring. These seeds rarely sprout into new growth; after all, should I get involved in another relationship with another woman?

 

I no longer live in a Hawaiian vacation, nor walk in a lush tropical rainforest of brightly colored flowers, floating in a green, abundant forest of jungle and a warm, perfectly blue ocean, walking next to a white sandy beach; I no longer merely watch the astounding colors of sunset while the soft night air sings of desired bodies.

 

Now, I see another road leading across a desert to an indefinable horizon littered with bodies of dreamers and ruins of dreams, and no one who went this way ever came back.

 

Like those who wake up after being drunk, they are embarrassed, and that is true of me as well. I did not believe (to the point of changing my actions) that I would pass into the

desert of old age, disease, and death. I was interested in God, Liberation, meditation, and Religion. I read the great texts. I went to great teachers. But, embarrassingly, such things

did not change my understanding of life, except superficially.

 

My Great Teacher, Adida Samraj, called ‘Hearing’ getting the ‘point’ of life—“You cannot become happy. You can only Be Happy.” That sounds like a trite philosophy and will always seem to be that until we wake up from the party.

 

Have you ever flown on a plane? Every time, at the beginning of the flight, there is a 5-minute review of everything you are supposed to do in the event of an emergency. Oxygen masks, emergency exits, water landing, how to brace for a crash. But these things are only background noise until something goes wrong with the plane, and then you wish you had paid closer attention so that it made a difference.

 

Now, something is wrong with the flight of my life; I ignored what I heard, and the plane has begun the inevitable, spiraling descent to old age and death, which is why I am embarrassed. I am not alone in this; almost none of us paid attention. All we have is excuses. The party had some exciting moments, and now they are mere pictures in a scrapbook, memories capable of only a moment's distraction.

 

I feel a sense of responsibility to turn around to those who have not yet felt this desert heat and tell them what it is like out here. Like a ‘designated driver,’  I am somewhat more

sober, I have made mistakes, and I can warn others, but most are not interested and do

not believe what I say and cannot make much of it because they are intoxicated.

 

How can I tell a young person that much of what they feel is just the world colored with hormones? How can I tell them that they are like a drunk, intoxicated? How can I tell them that the drink of desire will eventually make them addicted and then sick or that what they have gained can be taken away in a few moments or will be in many years and that this will happen to everyone?

 

These are the sort of things that I hear in the desert. The silence is vast, with possibilities

and echoing with the dead ends of lifetimes.

 

Sometimes, I think I have been blessed. I have heard the teaching of the Great One, so I am not lost altogether. I just have not realized what I believe. But I feel in my bones that belief is not enough. My hope is just that—hope; it is a dangerous river to fall into.

 

As I write this, I am 68 years old, and most of what I write about happened years ago.

As they say, old age is the least expected thing to happen to a person.

 

There is a difference between someone young and someone of my age. I began to feel it about the age of 50. It is difficult to describe and feels useless to speak about, like telling a very young person about romantic love. They will know it for themselves only after they experience it, and then it will be too late. They will already have gone over the falls and plunged deep into some revulsion or flowery commitment to one or another illusion that will inevitably end in separation or pain.

 

Once, I went camping in the high backcountry of Yosemite in the winter of heavy snowfall.

I had purchased snowshoes and was wearing a down jacket, cap, and boots with warm socks, toting a heavy pack, and walked up into the high country bowl of mountains to a frozen McCabe Lake covered with snow. I made camp there, pitching my tent under the bough of a tree near a slight rise by the lake. The overhang of branches had protected the spot, and the winds had not blown much snow there. The evening fell quickly, and a black night descended. It was very, very cold and very silent.

All that I wrote above is what I heard there . . . there is no other place to go.

 

When ignorant people see someone who is old, they are disgusted and horrified, even though they, too, will be old someday.  I thought I didn’t want to be like the ignorant people.  After that, I couldn’t feel the usual intoxication with youth anymore.

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When ignorant people see someone who is sick, they are disgusted and horrified, even though they, too, will be sick someday.  I thought to myself:  I don’t want to be like the ignorant people.  After that, I couldn’t feel the usual intoxication with health anymore.

​

When ignorant people see someone who is dead, they are disgusted and horrified, even though they, too, will be dead someday.  I thought to myself:  I don’t want to be like the ignorant people.  After that, I couldn’t feel the usual intoxication with life anymore.

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- Buddha​

at least I had company . . .

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Paracelsus wrote in response to those who criticized him for his wandering:

We must seek knowledge where we may expect to find it. He who wants to study the book of Nature must wander with his feet over the leaves. Every part of the world represents a page in this book, and all the pages together form the Book that contains her great revelations.

 

​

Following my desires

I wandered with my feet through the forest and over the leaves of life

out into the desert of old age

I have become increasingly ignorant

and the Book of Life has grown more mysterious

and simple . . .

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