Up: [[Life]] > [!orbit] Alix Kates Shulman in *Drinking the Rain* > For here I am when the tide goes out — speeder slowing down, fighter finding harmony, activist turned contemplative, analyzer seeking synthesis, communal become solitaire, rationalist grown spiritual, teacher turned student, desirer dissolving in [[Contentment]]. I wonder if these uncoverings are the blessings -- often seen as the curses — of age? Changes grounded in experience? Whatever they are, here, where time is still, I welcome them. Amor fati: love what is. Including my expanding self. (p. 65) > [!Orbit] Stephen Jenkinson in *Come of Age* > Eighty cents of every health care dollar in North America is spent in the last six months or so of a person’s life. The focus is on disease management, not health management. (p. 193) > [!Orbit] George Sand > The old woman I shall become will be quite different from the woman I am now. Another I is beginning. > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] in *Collected Works 7* > The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only its meaning and purpose are different. (114) > [!Orbit] [[Robertson Davies]] in *Fifth Business* > I am deep in the old man’s puzzle, trying to link the wisdom of the body with the wisdom of the spirit until the two are one. At my age you cannot divide spirit from body without anguish and destruction, from which you will speak nothing but crazy lies! (p. 171-172) > [!orbit] [[Anne Truitt]] in *Turn* > My intention is to be a vigorous old woman. So I must learn how to take the different kind of care needed by the worn envelope in which I now live, and must summon up the motivation to do so. > [!orbit] Hermann Hesse > I have no right to call myself one who knows. > I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books. > I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. > My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories. > It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves. > [!Orbit] Tennessee Williams > Life is a fairly well-written play except for the third act. It’s a badly written third act. > [!Orbit] An unknown geriatrician > If you've seen one 80-year-old, you've seen one 80-year-old. > [!orbit] [[Anne Truitt]] in *Turn* > Our lives move along, bearing our past into our future. > [!Orbit] [[Anne Truitt]] in *Turn* > Unable or unwilling to make psychic changes that take death into account, a person instead makes abrupt changes in circumstances and often loses the good of the knowledge accumulated in the steady effort of a lifetime. Thus diminished, a life can trail away in small busyness. Amusements become the equivalents of Lear’s knights: memories, hobbies, anecdotes of erstwhile cronies and skirmishes, creeping self-indulgences. This turn of events can make a person foolish, in need of a Fool to mirror lost self-respect. > [!Orbit] Helen Conway in a Substack post. Not sure if the quote is original to her. > Retired is the act of leaving obligation to follow desire. > [!Orbit] Mario de Andrade, Brazilian poet and novelist > We have two lives, and the second one starts when you realize that you only have one… > [!Orbit] Rachel Naomi Remen > A human life has seasons much as the earth has seasons, each time with its own particular beauty and power. And gift. By focusing on springtime and summer, we have turned the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation. Life is neither linear nor stagnant. It is movement from mystery to mystery. Just as a year includes autumn and winter, life includes death, not as an opposite but as an integral part of the way life is made. > [!Orbit] Woody Allen > I recently turned sixty. Practically a third of my life is over. > [!Orbit] Ronald Blythe > With full-span lives having become the norm, people may need to learn how to be aged as they once had to learn how to be adult. > [!Orbit] Bernard Baruch > To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am. > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] > For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself. > [!Orbit] [[Mary Oliver]] in *Our World* > How often now I just sit, with my > elbows on the desk and my hands > holding my face bold and upright, > and stare into the past. > [!Orbit] Miranda France in *The Writing School* > The past may be a foreign country, but at least it's one we've all been to and from which we may conserve some treasured mementoes -- the psychic equivalents of ...a fridge magnet, a snow dome. Old age is a blank page. It's hard to think yourself into that state, even as we all move steadily towards it. (p. 92)