Random Thoughts on Getting Older

Lee Elder

The reality that all of us ultimately must face is that we get older and our bodies, and our minds eventually fail us. I have seen this first hand in my family, in the JW community, and in the ex-JW community. It is simply a sad part of the human condition, as is physical, emotional, and mental illness. Some of the issues are easy to grasp. Others require some much dreaded experience.

I have more than my share of the experience side, which deeply grieves my soul. If you lack this experience, I can only say that you have been thus far spared, and try to be compassionate, and not too critical with with regard to some recent postings. I sincerely love both JWs, and the community of ex-JWs. That is the singular motivation behind what I have done these past two decades.

Much love to all of you.

Lee

Nevuela

The anointed one I know assured me recently that I would never grow old. I'm currently 36, and given that she considers herself old at 60-ish, the new system will apparently be here in less than a quarter of a decade. You have no idea how badly I wanted to tell her about the countless others who were told the same or believed in it themselves, only to grow old and die. Many of them have been dead for decades now. Surely she was told as a kid that she would never grow old, much less graduate from high school. Honestly, how do these people willfully forget their own youth?

The few times I've mentioned how people in the past who were certain that the end was "right around the corner" turned out to be wrong, she dismisses it with the argument that the signs of the times are just so much more obvious now, how can we deny it? That and the old "this system can't possibly last much longer because..." BS.

Haereticus

While I was in prison my mother wrote me how glad she was because I will not even be 30 before the new system will be here. That was back 1968, now I am 71 and my mother is 95 and busy thinking that if it does not come within her lifetime then it will come sometime later. I am assured that she has knowledge of past failures like 1914 and 1925, it is sad to see that some of us never learn.

The Searcher

Whether someone believes in God/Bible or not, they cannot deny the powerful and graphic metaphors of Ecclesiastes 1:1-7 which will apply to virtually every person fortunate/unfortunate enough to reach the winter of their lives.

840 months - culminating in physical & mental distresses. Not to mention seeing loved ones and others suffer and pass away before we do. All the more reason to care for our fellow man.

Still Totally ADD

I am now 62 and I was told back in the late 1950's I would never go to school, then when I did, I was told I would not graduate from school. I do not considered myself old but I do know I am getting older. I am working hard making better life changes and taking care of myself. Something I did not do in the Borg because the big Arm. Was coming and it will take care of everything. I must say the biggest thing I have a hard time wrapping my mind around is when I die my thoughts cease to existence. I am no more. Other than that I am looking forward to making a better life for my wife and me. I will just have to do it a little slower. LOL. My dad always told me towards the end of his life ( Old age is not for sissy's ). Still Totally ADD

ttdtt

I must say the biggest thing I have a hard time wrapping my mind around is when I die my thoughts cease to existence. I am no more.

Amen brother - its alway on my mind. 2nd biggest thing is that I had so many years stolen.

Simon

I think it's natural to think about our own mortality as we get older. It's part of that strange phenomenon where younger people often seem more cavalier with their life even though they have more of it to lose. I guess as you get less of something, it's value increases.

One of the few talks I can remember giving, I started with a poem (because I liked to be theatrical & dramatic, LOL):

Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.

Sir Walter Raleigh

You can see how it fit with the belief system, now ... not so much.

Heaven

Everything ages. It is part of the natural processes and cycles of our world, a natural result of linear time. It is not only homo sapien who ages and eventually dies, all life does. Some species have a shorter lifespan, like the chipmunk living only about 3 years, others, a much longer one, such as trees living 100s sometimes 1,000s of years.

As I began studying more of our natural world, a very profound discovery for me was the following:

Without death, there would be no life on this planet. Something must die so that something else can live.

This flies in the face of what religion tries to foist on us. Everyone must choose to live in a deluded world of what they want and hope to be true versus the actual truth of what really exists.

In my discussions with an Alzheimer's Society's social worker, she told me love transcends the dementia barrier. I know this to be true as I have seen this with my Dad. He doesn't say much now as the disease has robbed him of his ability to select proper words to use. I see him struggling to find them and ultimately losing. But what he does understand is when I tell him I love him. And he is still able to tell me he loves me too. THIS is what matters now, in the winter of his years.

dubstepped

I'm 39, and terrified of doctors and medical stuff. Always have been. My dad was too. I know now that I will get old and sick and die, and that is hard for me. I'm trying hard to adjust my perspectives, but "knowing" for 38 years that I'd never die is hard to shake and I bought in completely.

Death is hard to accept, as others mentioned above that ceasing to exist is a mind bender. That's why religions exist. They fill people with thoughts of another, even better existence. I always thought that the whole eternal nap thing for those that didn't make it in the new system was terrifying on some level. Now knowing that it is the only eventuality is tough.

I wish I was taught the cycle of life and appreciated it from a young age. I also wish 38 years wasn't wasted in a damn cult.

waton

The old jws dying have a vivid personal demonstration of failed wt promises. In lucid moments they should realise, that this experience puts all of wt/ bible "assured expectations" in question., even their own resurrection, even the one that wt shares with almost all religions: the future immortality of the "anointed".

Yes, movement through time is linear, but the experience of that steady movement is changed with age, it is faster, so, it is not only more precious, because it is becoming rarer and rarer with your age, but because these old age days are ever more tightly packed into shorter and shorter years.

so make sure your old years are truly golden.

Random Thoughts on Getting Older

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