JUST PHILOSOPHISING ON - THE COST OF ATTAINING LIFE AND GROWING OLDER. PART 1.

 

So, what, if anything, does it cost for us, if we are fortunate or unfortunate, as the case might be, to live beyond our childhood years and keep growing older? 

Is it a blessing or a curse, or, were we to take a more objective approach, both, for us to keep going until we reach the point of the unrelenting gravitational pull of the unescapable Abyss before us?

When we are but babies and very young children, there are two paths before us. 

There is the path of the higher risk of an early death, as we might succumb to the various diseases to which we, by virtue of our infancy, might contract. 

And there is the chance of us living to attain adulthood and realising or not realising the dreams and aspirations of our parents and ourselves. 

But now that we are old and getting older, there is but only one path which lies before us; the path of dying, of expiring and ending our life's-journey.

As a landlord might 'call time' before the appointed hour for which the law stipulates they should/must close their pub.  

So must the old person contemplate their demise as they confront the approaching point of their demise, passing, death, of leaving the world of the living.

It is part of the paradox of life, of attaining physicality and being able to breathe autonomously, that we might, though not  unequivocally so, speak of having 'gained something.' 

We and/or others might comment on the blessings of 'being born'. Of being alive, of having a lover, a partner, a wife or husband, of having children, of having a beautiful family. 

It is given to us, indeed, to every socially and/or family orientated primate species, to make or form connection with others of our species, as well as interspecies connection. 

And, inasmuch as we are able to reflect upon and analyse ourselves, to also make connection with the perception of who and what we are. 

To be continued!