What Do We Do When Our Youth Starts to Decline?
#1: How About Aiming Beyond Youth?
We’re getting there, almost there, and we’re dreading it. We’ve been on the bus for a while riding that freeway hard, with the wind on our hair. So far, it’s been awesome and we don’t want it to stop, like ever. Let the bus ride on! And on, and on.
But it’s slowing down and reaching a stop. We bribe/kiss/plead the driver to carry on and to never stop, but he has no choice, he’s doing his job and following the natural course of things. The bus takes a turn away from the freeway and slows down even more. Shit, we’re getting here. Shit, it’s finally getting over. We’d rarely thought this day would come to haunt us.
The day our youth-bus is slowing down, and with it that wild, abundant spiritedness and energy we once took for granted
The bus is coming to a halt. What should drive us now?
One thing that draws near-unanimous favor for youth (among the young and fiery especially) is drive. There’s a drive to do things and explore and hunt. There’s a thirst for new territories. There’s an abundance of energy and feeling to support the most outrageous venture. It feels like everything is possible, nothing is beyond reach. Of course, youth yields immediate favor at first.
From our youth bus when we look at our elders, we see them slightly depleted and tied down. They’ve grown moderate and that worries us. Their buses have stopped.
At the same time, we’re reminded of icons like Johann Von Goethe who’re known to have somehow retained drive and ferocity up to their final years, literally. They found an anchor that lasted a lifetime. Whereas many others settle and wither once they get off the youth bus. What’s the difference between the two camps. Something changed for those like Goethe, unlike most of their peers.
Youth spurred them on, but they retained a thread that followed them even after they got off the bus. They retained.
They lost their youthful looks, as do most, naturally, but they retained a key drive. They still stood in the boxing ring, even though they weren’t as “hot” or as charming as they once were.
We’re then drawn to examples around us like John Weiss, who continues to breathe art long after retirement, continuously pushing, striving, improving, drawing energies from a better reservoir than plain youth.
What we need then aren’t fancy, exotic drives — but sustainable drives; A reservoir we can draw from that stands the test of time — sturdy and tall.
How do we find one? For that, I propose three deal-breakers that make or unmake what constitutes a strong reservoir — the only thing that doesn’t need youth to carry on.
1. Discerning Between a Real Drive and a Fancy
Goethe hit upon every thread he could during his youth — politics, traveling, state administration, painting, writing, flirting (a lot), scientific inquiries, and investigations into geology — you name it and he attacked it. Many call him the last renaissance man. What many overlook is that throughout his time he retained a few threads while discarding redundant ones — one of them was painting.
In his Italian travels, he dabbled (in his own words) in painting and sculpting, only to realize later that these youthful fancies had an expiration date. He then reverted to what he was always good at — writing, one of his main threads.
Goethe knew what to pick and retain, and that was his trademark ability; To know which thread to let go of, anticipating an expiration date, while retaining the thread that had genuine lasting value, rather than immediate fancy.
This is the work. Of knowing which thread is real and lasting, and won’t evaporate as soon as we get off the bus.
Need I remind of the countless people who take on extravagant hobbies in their youth, only to drop them within the year/month. Most threads expire by the time we get off the youth-bus. The question is, what are we left with?
Johann Von Goethe had something left because they knew what to let go and what to keep so that by the time they got off the bus, they had a thread to be committed to after all the gala and songs of youth die down — as they always do.
So, Who are you after the songs have stopped?
Maybe there’s a way to play the game to ensure we’re left, not merely with a tiny thread, but with something substantial that only grows long after the youth-bus stops. Maybe it never really mattered whether the bus stopped for those who knew how to carry on.
One of the ways we need to explore is our next point:
2. Focusing on the Long Haul Right from the Beginning
Start by playing not for your youth, but for the extent of your lifespan. How about that?
What do we do to keep a string flame going inside of us irrespective of how old we get. We already have examples around us — Scientists, artists, thinkers, revolutionaries, whatnot. We may even have an everyday example somewhere around us — that case of an older gentleman who’ still alive with spirit and purpose. He may not be a genius, he may not be famous, but he retained a spark. Isn’t that what we dream of? To be alive and valuable till the very end.
So why not start by playing for the long haul, right now. The game shifts when we aim long, and we realize the futility of some threads picked up in our youths that quickly turn out to be a “fanciful energetic wastes” that don’t last. If we’re playing long we need something that lasts! That is the precondition and finding that is the work.
If we start out boldly into new artistic ventures that don’t stand the test of time (i.e consistent efforts, reasonable results) — then are they really meant for the long haul? If no, then do we have the balls to let them go. Didn’t they tell you? We need balls to let go of things.
Steven Pressfield, the acclaimed author, barely earned a penny (or gained acknowledgment) for the first decade of his work — during which time, writing was his sole focus. Sole focus.
In other words, Steven started out prepared for the long haul.
In the longer format of the game, there’s little romance and thrill on the surface, which is what attracts the young at first.
In the longer format, one doesn’t (and cannot) play for the glitter and buzz. The buzz always fades, leaving us in the end alone with our tasks at hand. Alone. Just us, in the quiet solitude of our rooms and studios. As the youth-bus comes to a halt, so does the buzz. Who are we without the buzz?
This leads us to the last maxim and clue:
3. A Sustainable Drive is an End in itself
Notice the things we do, where there is no ‘us’ — no pride, no grand expectations, no score we’re looking to settle. Those things we’re pulled by, for nothing other than the dual forces of its nature and our nature — Just us and the task. Just the two.
The things we do not for the reward we expect but for the thing itself.
Hans Zimmer the music composer, mentioned once that he’d continue making music even if no one paid him. Read that again — That’s no light statement from a genius who meant every word.
At 60+, Zimmer is still riding a high wave. Those like him find the thread that exists in its own right, as an end — not as a means to some other end.
We could be music composers for different reasons. Some might feel it gives them status, for some money and fame — nothing wrong with all that, but could we beat a man who pursues in as an end in itself? Whose efforts aren’t conditional.
Maybe sustainable drives that last a lifetime are exactly that — motive forces that are truly independent, a motor that runs indefinitely since its purpose is simply too compelling. It’s a candle that generates its own wax to keep on going.
Could this be the secret to why some retain their burning lives long into old age, never resentful of having got off the youth-bus? Because they found something better than youth, the thing that outlasts youth and glitter.
It’s time we play for the long term. Not youth, not fancies that pass as “ideals”, but genuine ambitions that don’t evaporate the minute we get off the youth-bus. And if it does, was it even a real ambition to begin with?
Yes, it’s time. Get off the bus.
Let’s find those driving ideas that grow and build with age.
