I don’t think anyone under the age of 65 will have the faintest idea what this blog is about. Predictably, every age has its psychological symptoms; when you are 19, you are always the smartest guy in the room and anyone over 25 is a target for your rebellious ire.
In your 20s, you are sorting through career and job and college and he and she stuff. Your 30s are about stabilization and family. All of these phases are superimposed upon a foundation of optimism and possibilities and opportunities and hope. You might be great; around the next corner fortune may favor your portfolio or you will distinguish yourself among your peers in some unanticipatable way.
I’ve flown into
I’ve seen the grinding poverty of
I’ve drunk Caipirinhas in cafes on the
I stood at the top of Christo Redemptor overlooking the city of
The question I ask myself as I am immersed in these unique environments…unusual and new to me…is this; what difference does any of this make? You’re going to die anyway…and that right soon – perhaps. All the diversity and beauty and horror and mystery and romance and banality of this reality will evaporate and…then…nothing.
As I write this, I can hear the groaning of others for whom these reflections appear to be cynical and jaded…the ennui unacceptable by the standards of their life perspective. The empirical and hedonistic tone of my comments seem cold and faithless…spiritually disquieting and devoid of the merry optimism of the sacred.
As E.O. Wilson says in his book, Consilience, which I referenced in the preceding blog; “The spirits our ancestors knew intimately first fled the rocks and trees, then the distant mountains. Now they are in the stars, where their final extinction is possible. But we cannot live without them. People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or other, however intellectualized. They will refuse to yield to the despair of animal mortality.”
At a certain age – which differs for each person – the decay is undeniable. The body disintegrates irrespective of any efforts to discourage its accelerating decrepitude. The fresh-fleshed and life-scented buoyancy of the young presides at every gathering and asserts its predominance over those of us who are vanishing.
Look at the old people dragging their disabilities and deteriorating carcasses around the world to get one last glimpse of all that is and all that can be – just before they cease to be. Being a part of that predicable and desperate mob is depressing. What does one hope to gain at this last moment; unique insights into what life could have been had you understood yourself and others more completely in your youth?
Is all this futile wandering in the service of moral development or to develop one’s aesthetic sensibility just in time to sit in a rocker and think about all the things you should have seen and appreciated but were to busy to enjoy? I’m not sure about the objective shared by this caravan of gray hair and arthritis…and I don’t care. Most of us seniors travel because we don’t have anything else to do and it gives us stories to share with others – people who are still immersed in purposeful lives – earning, spending, and supporting their families…advancing their noble career ambitions.
My point is that travel doesn’t mean much to me at this point in my life. I look around the various settings in which I find myself and ask, “Am I once again the oldest person in the room?” As I see the physical beauty of the world, I can’t help thinking how wonderful it would have been to see it when I was in my 30s.
At my age, I know that won’t happen. I will never live overlooking the beach at Ipanema. I will not work in





