Wednesday 7 November 2001

Pic of the day: This picture was taken back on the farm where I grew up. I'll always think of the mountains in connection with the farm. But actually, the mountains were ancient before the first men came to the valley, and will still be young when we are gone.

Mayfly longevity

Bear with me, for all things are connected. For the sake of our life on Earth, we need to see the world and even each other as objects to fulfill our personal needs. But in reality, we are all part of a whole, and we are all connected - "both the enemy and the friend, till the end of time" to quote Chris de Burgh.

I have told you how fad-driven I am. Rarely by public fads, the waves blown up by the winds of this time. (Though in the case of my current Civilization fad, it owes almost everything to the release of Civ3 in the USA. A great disturbance in the Force, indeed.) Rather I have my own internal fads. I latch on to something and hold tight for some days, perhaps a week. Then I let go, but I may be back later for more. Like the infamously short-lived mayflies, each interest enjoys a brief time in the brightness and then fades from sight.

In this way, my Civilization fad has ruled the Chaos Node this past week, though some of the tangents have been rather far off. It was now destined to sink back like a wave into the sea of obscurity, while something else rose. That something else seems to be Taoism. Not as a religion – I have one already – but there are theoretical aspects of it that appears interesting. Now, because of Freeciv, the previous fad has got a new lease on life. But at the same time, the new one keeps growing. An interesting combination indeed. (You got a hint of that in my entry about ancient civilizations and the test of time.)

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An intriguing part is that Chinese Taoists often think of their philosophy as a road to longevity, and even immortality. This is explained in detail in the summer issue of The Empty Vessel. They list three distinct phases: Health, longevity, and immortality. In the first you get in harmony with nature; in the second, you refine or improve on nature; and in the third, you transcend it.

I know this may all sound like magical hockey-pocky. But I hardly need to remind my friends and long-time readers how well it fits with my view on the mid-life crisis, a view that is very similar to that of C.G. Jung. I'm afraid his concordance with eastern mysticism has cost him dearly in acceptance among western rationalist thinkers; and indeed, there are many New Age prophets who use Jungian language to support supernaturalism. But Jung never made any judgment about the reality of the supernatural. He was solely concerned with the way we humans view and relate to that part of life.

Our society has been focused on youth for a long time. This is only natural, but it is about to end. When infant mortality plummeted, most of the world saw a great boom in the population of children and then young people. Today these baby boomers are hitting their mid-life here in the rich world, and suddenly we start to get mid-life crises everywhere. As is good and proper, when people who are no longer young feel that something is amiss, that they are committing some kind of invisible crime by growing old.

Eastern societies have focused on the old in a positive way for millennia. It is no big surprise that they have ideologies to support this. Perhaps we can learn from them. And perhaps we can improve on them.

When people are young, they are still learning to use their body and mind. They need to find a balance of the natural things to do. (I say "natural" loosely ... we are not wild apes and what is natural in a society differs from what is natural in the forest.) For instance, those who shall create and maintain a family, need sex. Quite a bit of it. If they have other preferences, they will not be able to fill that role. On the other hand, if they can think and do nothing else, they will also fail. They have to learn moderation and balance in all things. Enough work, enough play, enough sleep, enough food, enough friendship, enough fighting. All things in their proper time and their proper measure. This is the teaching of "health". Without it, there will be excess or deficiency, and it takes its toll on the individual as well as society.

But times change. Your children, if any, grow up. Your bodily needs diminish. Your physical energy peaks and then slowly fades. Your senses start to get duller, your reactions slower, though your mind remains strong. It is time for the next change. The next lesson. But our society commands: Thou shalt be young! Even if it means doing what no longer lies in your path. And to prove youthfulness, excess is required. But in truth the time has come to go from "everything in moderation" to "moderation in everything". It is time to stop building the house of the body and start to work on the interior.

I am not convinced by the legends of longevity among the Chinese and various other people. As verifiable registries have become more common, the outrageous claims of longevity have dwindled. Yet I do not doubt that a life of restraint and moderate asceticism will prolong the life. It is the part of life where the fire burns lower; to fan the flames to look like youth will only consume the body. But to stop living also means death. There should be another lifestyle. It is worth noting that in China, elderly people often spend some time in gentle but regular exercise each day, practicing forms that are adapted to their older bodies. While in our western societies, the elderly are plopped in front of the TV to rot, unless their dog rescues them for a while with at least some exercise.

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The third stage is obscure even to me. There is no reason to believe that these people become immortal in the classic sense of the world, in a clinical sense if you will. Rather it seems to refer to rescuing the person over in the spirit world. Remember that China, for instance, has a long tradition of ancestor worship. In this, his or her descendants remember the deceased as a person. But memory fades to legend, and legend fades to myth, and even myth is eventually forgotten. In religious Taoism, or perhaps Daoism, this is symbolized by the spirit rising with every generation from a more earthly and concrete plane to a more heavenly and abstract plane. As it does, it loses interest in the material world, and the material world loses interest in it, until it leaves this world forever.

Perhaps the last stage, denying the body its seemingly rightful needs, is a deliberate attempt to come to terms with one's mortality. Or rather, the body's mortality. For looking forward, our life seems to stretch on and on. But looking back, it is so brief, like the hours of a mayfly. It seems so meaningless that all we have learned, all we have built inside, should be negated just by the simple failure of the flesh. And as the body finally betrays us, so we must learn to live without it ... or die trying.