Trajectory

[pjthompson]

Some people have a Hallmark view of illness and old age, an impression that illness ennobles people, that age makes them wise. In my experience, whoever you are if you get sick and when you get old is exactly who you’ve always been, only more so. The rare individual will transcend their illness and face impending death with courage and incredible grace. Most of us slide into it with whatever bag of tricks we’ve always carried: anger, fear, manipulation, martyrdom. Sometimes a sense of humor. Sometimes glimpses of grace with all the negatives combined. The individual mix is as diverse as the population of sick people.

And wisdom in old age? If you were a young person with a questing mind and a need to learn you might have a shot at gaining wisdom as you age. Most of us coast along on our longtime habits, preferring the solace of comfort to the burning quest for knowledge. The quest burns because it often isn’t comfortable and most of us don’t want to bother. So we just get older and our eccentricities and habits become more pronounced, more etched into our soul with deeper grooves. We learn a few things along the way, but we don’t necessarily gain wisdom. Who you were is who you will be. And if you think you’re wise? You probably aren’t.

It takes willpower to change that trajectory. You have to want to be more than the sum of your parts and the collection of your habits. That takes a self-awareness most of us never achieve.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Comments

[darkspires.livejournal.com]

Hugs. I know too well where you are coming from. It is a bitter pill.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

I didn't write that out of a sense of feeling sorry for myself. Just an observation from having dealt with a lot of sick and old people in the last few years. :-)

[frigg.livejournal.com]

True, according to some I suddenly became more noble, brave, sweet, and interesting overnight after my MS diagnosis. Obviously I didn't. I'm still me, and I deal with my illness because... what else is there to do? It's not as if I can stop being sick when I've had enough.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

You had character before you got sick and it's continued into your illness. You've always dealt with it forthrightly and with spirit, it seems to me, looking at it from a distance. That's who you are. That's who you will be.

People can overcome who they have been in the past. I've also seen that happen. Character is not always destiny. But it's a rare phenomena, I think. As I was saying to someone in another setting, if karma is anything, it's the momentum of habitual living, repeated and repeated, until one makes a conscious attempt to free oneself. Sometimes we have to have our face pushed into the wall before we even make the attempt. Sometimes not even that is enough.

Just observations after dealing with a lot of sick and old people in the last few years. No special lock on knowledge.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Awww, thank you.

And yes, people can change, but like you say, it rarely happens.