Yesterday, I had a phone call with an old friend and fellow crone, both of us 83 years old, I’ll call her Bobbie. Much of our conversation centered on her various ailments, which have multiplied. This year, four episodes of  heart trouble, one after another, with each one landing her overnight in the hospital. And she’s already replaced both knees. Despite that, Bobbie is determined to finish walking the shorter version of Spain’s El Camino. 60 miles to go. When she started that trail, she had to stop after 40 miles because of an ailment that put her in the hospital. So no one can say that she is not intrepid!

This time she’s taking a younger friend with her. Good! And will go very slowly.

Both of us notice that we are startled to wake up each day and realize, once again: “I’m 83 years old!” WHAT? It seems impossible, to have reached this advanced age. Though I’m “in better shape” than she is, both of us have both long-term and short-term goals, supportive friends; in short, a meaningful life. And I don’t mean meaningful as Elon Musk put it recently, thinking that if AI and robotics take over most of human labor what will humans do, since so many of them find “meaning” in their jobs. What? Really? Since when did a “job” confer meaning? I’ve always seen jobs as wage slavery, and strived mightily to remain free of that encumbrance — ever since I was 16 years old and realized that’s what adults do, they go to their jobs and complain about them. Back then, it was “Huh? Well, then, I’ll never be an adult.”

BTW: It’s actually wonderful to think that AI will soon take over human labor, freeing humans up to pursue their own creative potential. And yet, for this shift to take place, education itself will have to transform, since it is geared for preparing students for future jobs. As currently practiced and institutionalized, education is a left-brain activity; creativity is right-brain.

Any “job” that can be AI-tisized, I’d say, good! It’s about time.

I’m 83; I did manage to skip “adulthood” (i.e., jobs, instead working on my own as a consultant) and find myself in “old age.” And yet, my daily activities are probably more strenuous than they were three years ago, due to the recognition that as I grow older (not get older, notice) I must do more on a physical level, to maintain health, since muscle tissue especially, as well as bone density, both tend to deteriorate over time.

And I know, full well, that one serious fall could “do me in.” Which is one of the reasons why I practice chi kung and tai chai, to maintain the flow of chi (energy) through every cell in the body. Which means that I always automatically “correct myself,” if I stumble, which I sometimes, though rarely, do: usually on leaf-covered trails covering hidden roots.

Speaking with this friend yesterday, I mentioned that I start my morning by jumping 100 times on my rebounder. That this gets the lymph and everything else going. “Really?” she asked. “I have a rebounder, and started to use it for a while each day, but then stopped.”

Which launched me into a lecture on routines, and how it is so important to maintain routines that support health, especially as we grow older.

I could feel myself revving up as I said this to her, emotionally shaking her shoulders for emphasis. This aspect of me, this controlling, judging ego, tends to get activated whenever I see someone who could be of great service to others succumbing meanwhile to private debilities.

The point is, why are we here on earth? For me, it is to learn about ourselves through relationships with others, and especially, at this age, through service to others, not so much physical, but mental, emotional and spiritual. Conscious aging does that, or it can; the lifelong process guarantees suffering, attachment; the yield is continuously letting go into wisdom.

So how come I find myself in the situation where I still constantly want to control people? To tell them what they need to do? To repeat endlessly, THE BODY IS PRIMARY! And it is; without a sound body, we are no good to others or ourselves; instead we become parasitical upon society. No fun. No good. No thanks.

The process of learning, of transforming judgment and control into genuine wisdom, is neverending. Which is good. For why else would I still be here, if not to learn about myself, and to continuously seek to transform the way I respond to the world?