I´m reading the (true) story “
Tuesdays with Morrie” atm (there is a film even, Wiki says - have you seen it, is it good?). It´s about the relationship between a former professor and his student.
16 years ago they were very close when student Mitch graduated, but Mitch got absorbed in life and forgot about Morrie.
Until he saw him on TV. Sick.
ALS got him.
He flew over, by accident it was a Tuesday. Back then Tuesdays were the days they spent together, so they became the Tuesday-people again and Mitch recorded the last months of Morrie´s life.
One Tuesday they spoke about the “Fear of aging”.
‘Weren´t you
ever afraid to grow old, I asked?
“Mitch, I
embrace aging.”
Embrace it?
“It´s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you´d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It´s more than the negative that you have to die, it´s also the positive that you understand you´re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”
Yes, I said, but if aging was so valuable, why do people always say, “Oh, if I were young again.” You never hear people say, “I wish I were sixty-five.”
He smiled. “You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven´t found meaning. Because if you´ve found meaning in your life, you don´t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can´t wait until sixty-five.’
He also asks if he doesn´t envy the young for mobility, health… he admits yes, that´s envy, separate from it now. Detach. You have had those times, you´re in the time you are now. You´ll always envy the youth.
‘“Age is not a competitive issue.”
“The truth is, part of me is every age. I´m a three-year-old, I´m a thirty-seven-year-old, I´m a fifty-year old. I´ve been through all of them, and I know what it´s like. I delight in being a child when it´s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it´s appropriate to be a wise old man.
Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. Do you understand?”’
And on one Tuesday the lesson was on “How life goes on”.
‘“And love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”’
Wise man Morrie was, huh?
Often I thought, nah, if I had the chance, I wouldn´t want to go back. I don´t wanna be young again like in my twenties. All the stuff I embraced, all the travels, all the encounters, friendships would be lost!
I hope for many years to come, but really, if this would be the day to say good-bye I could at least say I had a full life.
I just hope that when I have to go it will be quick cause I would never be as strong as Morrie was.
