Turning 45

Yet another milestone beckons. While 40 brought me acceptance, 45 seems to be about agency. Since I have stopped fighting for things that don’t seem to matter or are pushed on me, I seem to have a lot more energy to fight for things I care about. All through my life, it now seems things and places happened to me. Home, school, neighbourhood, college, university, work. One by one things got added to my “world” often without much choice. Life was one unending series of events, expectations and anxieties. Everyone who has an interest in me behaving in a certain way will set up incentives — good or bad. And most of these interests are not malicious, it is just the way things are.

Now I have stopped caring (or caring less) and I hope I can see more clearly. I see that things don’t have to be the way they are. You really don’t need so many things. A life of luxury is not something we need. You don’t need a ton of money, or a house that is too big, or luxury holidays — and it’s not sour grapes. It is actually foolish to have too much money — you are forced to spend it. You spend days and weeks agonising over places you have to visit and toys you have to acquire. Not having money is better, it makes me live in the here and now. There is more power in renunciation than acquisition.

What really matters is ideas. The world of ideas is far more fascinating than the world of wealth. Ideas make me feel more alive. Like a torch they light up parts of my world where I have never looked before. The world of ideas lives inside us, while we keep looking outside. We have our own “impetus” to do things, but we don’t do them for the fear of judgement, or because we don’t trust ourselves. We don’t follow ideas because we find them dangerous, because we feel so safe in a world judged by others.

The wealth of the world is in the books people have written. The greatest power is the power hidden inside all of us, power that we rarely use. No matter what we do in life, we will all end up in hospital rooms and the lights will go out. The world will go on without us. Our life is just a window that we have been given to observe the world. And maybe tinker a bit, or change it forever.