Beyond the Stories of Ageing
- Meditation
- Feb 5
- 2 min read
Ageing is a privilege.
That was the sticker on my fridge when I was in my fifties.
As I began to feel the effects of getting older, it changed to:
"Old age is not for sissies.”
With time, I realised that both stickers were really an attempt to plaster over all the internalised stuff we accumulate about ageing—everything we absorb into our minds over a lifetime.
In this meditation, we study the human mind, which is formed through an automatic, unconscious process. We take “pictures” with our five senses—like a body camera—and store them in the brain.
These pictures, along with the narrative we build from them, become a script for our lives.
We end up living according to what we have imprinted from the past.
When it comes to ageing, long before our bodies actually grow old, we already carry a template of what old age is supposed to be. It comes from all the images of elderly people we have seen, and all the ideas and beliefs about ageing that we have consumed.
For example, when I feel myself to be the victim of an ageist attitude, I often find a corresponding echo within my own mind—an antenna searching for a match—and I operate from there.
I may say, “I feel old,” but since I was never old before, how do I know what “old” feels like?
The truth is, it already exists in my imagination. All those images of old age that I have imprinted are there, waiting for me to step into them. I also carry the images of my youth, so there is endless potential for comparison and angst—and it all happens inside my own mind.
But I was not born with these images that now drive me. We are not meant to live inside our imagination. Deep within is something quieter and more true: our mind itself.
Yes, if I am fortunate, my body may live to a long age. But that doesn’t require my mind to be cluttered with stories about it, keeping count, measuring loss, or replaying expectations.
Now is the opportunity to cleanse the mind of all its accumulations.
In this meditation, we have a method to drop the pictures and stories we have been pretending are “me”—the very stories that have been shaping our destiny. There is no real freedom inside the script.
Our preconceptions, as a roadmap for life, are overrated and deeply limiting.
How differently might life unfold if we were free of them?
Happily, it’s unimaginable.
More like a road trip than a tram ride.
In my next blog, I will explore more about the burden we carry into old age, and the true purpose of ageing. Thank you!
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