The start of a new year, a time to ponder the so-called “golden years” with their lure of “time” and “freedom” There are periods when we are “loving the golden years” and periods when all we can do is shake our head and ask “why?” A threshold connects those two states, I call it “the in-between time”. This is where we realize we have left something behind and have no idea what is ahead. What do “we do” and how do “we be” during this “in-between time”?
Below is a copy of a poem, that has inspired me for the last fifteen years, called “Merlin on Aging”. It speaks between the lines of “the in-between times”!
Merlin on Aging
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King
For those “in-between times”!
