Wisdom

Chip’s Editorial Comment: Barb Waxman is one of the most delightful and wise people I know. We’re very fortunate that she’s been teaching at MEA since the first year we opened and she’s helped popularize the concept of “middlescence,” the adult corollary to adolescence.

A “half-life” is the time it takes for something to reduce itself by half. It’s a term that’s most commonly used in relation to radioactive decay, but it’s also useful in other contexts, which is why some of us (less sciency types) have started borrowing it to reframe how we think about a variety of things like knowledge, careers, drugs, even secrets… essentially anything where the quantity or strength of something decreases over time.

“There are 4 sentences that lead to wisdom: “I don't know..” “I need help.” “I'm sorry..” “I was wrong.” - Louise Penny

Many of you know I struggled significantly in my late 40s, feeling more like a "modern failure" than a "modern elder." My life had become predictable and overwhelmingly negative. Everything was crap! To wrestle my ego, control, and status to the ground, fate threw me a curve ball. Really, it was more like a rare knuckleball, and I was striking out left and right.

To ferment is to distill something down to its essence and preserve it. We do it with beer, wine, yogurt, kimchi, and kombucha.

This was shared by a friend. The source states that it was borrowed and they don't know who to credit it to, but thank you, whoever you are! If you have not yet seen this, you may find some important life lessons. It feels like a good Thanksgiving lesson.

“The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths. What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light? Or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness rejoins consciousness.” Joseph Campbell, “The Power of Myth”

I’ve written quite a bit about the value of creating a practice of spending 20-30 minutes each weekend sorting through your most significant lessons of the past week—personally and professionally—including how these lessons might enlighten you moving forward. I’ve been writing in my physical and, now, digital “Wisdom Books” for 34 years, and I’ve yet to find a more reliable method of metabolizing one’s experiences into wisdom.

I’m high on life sitting on my deck at an Austrian medical spa on the bucolic Lake Altaussee with Yosemite-like sheer cliff faces facing me.

Wisdom is a tricky topic. You know it when you see it. So, we’ve always had a complex relationship with the proclamation that MEA is the world’s first midlife wisdom school. Anyone who professes they’re wise probably isn’t.