I can't help but think of where I was living and what I was doing and how hard held on and believed when I was 36 and 37 years old. I remember so well once when the world so let me down and I said to a friend, "I won't give up. I don't want to believe in a world that works like you say it does. I won't. I can't."
Yeah I know how it feels from the inside out. I know it's not about things on the first or second layer of an onion.
But you see, when you're in twenties, life is about learning how to not be kid, even though the world still really treats you like one. . . . And it seems all about belief.
And when you're your in your thirties, it's about figuring out that your life is your own and you're on this planet for real for three decades already -- oh my god. Somehow it seems all about skill and belief.
Then you get past forty and you notice that all of the problems and decisions look like problems and decisions that you've seen in some form or another before. It seems all about experience, skill, and belief.
If you're lucky and rich in friends, and maybe once somewhere you touched some unconditional love . . . you remember that it's about all of the above and . . . . never separating your head and your heart. When they're together, it's a lot easier to know what to hold and what to let go.
Head and heart, that's my secret.
Yeah I know how it feels from the inside out. I know it's not about things on the first or second layer of an onion.
But you see, when you're in twenties, life is about learning how to not be kid, even though the world still really treats you like one. . . . And it seems all about belief.
And when you're your in your thirties, it's about figuring out that your life is your own and you're on this planet for real for three decades already -- oh my god. Somehow it seems all about skill and belief.
Then you get past forty and you notice that all of the problems and decisions look like problems and decisions that you've seen in some form or another before. It seems all about experience, skill, and belief.
If you're lucky and rich in friends, and maybe once somewhere you touched some unconditional love . . . you remember that it's about all of the above and . . . . never separating your head and your heart. When they're together, it's a lot easier to know what to hold and what to let go.
Head and heart, that's my secret.
--me strauss Letting me be
17 comments:
Hi Liz
With hindsight I say my 'life' started at 30 ;-) (in my feeling that was the point I came 'above water' again after a very distressing time).
Now, halfway between 40 and 50, heart is grateful for what head notices, remembers and practises.
Hi Karin,
Thank you for even coming over to look for something I might have written.
Boy oh boy, you are so ahead of me. Both of my parents died by the time I was 31 and still I wasn't (as they say in some places) fully-growed.
Your heart, the more I know of it, is quite a fine one, that according to your own measure must be bursting with graditude, for I see filled with knowledge and warm with practice.
Hi Liz
You almost made me 'sniffle' with your last sentence.
Yes, I am filled with gratitude nowadays. Resentful days are (mostly) gone.
I still don't feel my self fully grown, hoe I never be, too much 'fun'
I agree about that fully grown thing. I think part of the wisdom of getting older is not only head and heart but child and adult.
Create and wonder . . . Build and test . . . dream and believe . . . See and know
Inside and out alive all over. :)
;-)
As always Liz, you paint with words and you made me smile again.
p.s. some day I will tell my mentor you've missed him too.
Someday, I will meet your mentor. I believe that. He might not know that I've heard of him. I might not know that I've heard of him. You might not even know that we met. But I believe we'll meet nonetheless.
oh Liz, how this post hits home with me.
once when i was younger, it was all heart, damn the consequences and all that. now that i'm much older, it's head and heart. that's my secret too, you won't be living a life with just your head. :)
Oh Dsnake!
I know, I know. Without a heart? It sounds so lonely and so empty. Right that's no life at all. :)
Very nice Liz. :-)
Very nicely put, and very true indeed. And - because I first found out of the head and heart thing rather late, life first got really interesting in my late 30's.
Hi Tree,
thank you. I think so too.
Hi Ingrid,
I don't think that a head and heart come to until we're grown up.
:) I don't think we ever stop "growing up" It is true, we learn something new everyday.
Through out all the years and the ones to come, if we live for the day with an open mind, we will not just live... we will be alive.
Hello, lucid,
Yes, there is so much difference between living and being alive. I so want to be alive before I stop living. :)
That's the way to go, don't stop believin' it either
I know, Janus. I know. You don't stop and I won't stop either.
Love this!
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