Ageing Or Advancing On The Timeline?
There are many alternative euphemisms for the word “ageing” spinning around out there in the thought sphere - pod casters, bloggers and writers understandably want to put a positive spin on the process we all know is only leading to one rather very dead end.
It’s perfectly understandable - why would anyone want to push more negativity onto a subject that is already about as sufficiently negative as it can get?
Nora Ephron, in her little book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, finds the hypey, happy attitude a little hard to swallow and then proceeds with much self-deprecating humour to outline why that is so from her vantage point.
While I do agree that it seems pretty silly to take the fantasy fun-filled let’s-all-just-party-on approach, I can’t just accept without question, the level of self-deprecation in her humour.
Although a humorous approach around the subject can be helpful at times, we have to be careful with that - ultimately context is everything!
I for one wouldn’t dream of making light of the many serious issues a woman can face while advancing on the timeline.
Could there possibly be a more truthfully accurate and also psychologically appealing way around this dreadful conundrum?
I searched myself deeply before I could come up with my little euphemism advancing on the timeline. The phrase evokes an image - a timeline and at least conveys a truthful reality without any overt associations of degradation.
We are advancing on the timeline, implying a forward movement, a progression of some kind …
We can choose to view ourselves, growing and gaining more wisdom as we advance along the timeline -in spite of the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” Shakespeare observed so truthfully.
Now is the time to remind ourselves that the majority of those “shocks” are the various injuries sustained in the shadowy areas of the forgotten soul and are psychological and spiritual in nature.
And even though we might understand that on some level of our being, we need to continue to search our souls diligently if freedom truly is our heart’s desire.
Unfortunately , our tendency as a human being is to focus more on our physical ailments. The invisible aspect of our being, is almost always left at the bottom of the to-do list.
The unseen portion of our existence, our soul, is usually suffering under the weight of years of neglect, in spite of living in a world saturated with experts, psychologists, motivational speakers and now neuroscientists always ready to offer wisdom on the subject.
Why do so many untouched self-help books end up in thrift shops?
Could it be because we’re imagining freedom as something we have to strive for, rather than accept as a gift of Grace?
