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News blog: Felix Zimmer

FELIX ZIMMER SAYS:                  

Yes, okay, ageing has its down-sides. I know. As a little old man I am definitely of the ageing persuasion. I’ve cared for friends and family at the end of life (and on the way there). Fear, suffering, increasing isolation, social disrespect, disempowerment… I know.

Then again, personal experience: ageing is excellent. We have been around the block. We know a thing or two. We’ve been a world-changing generation. Why, as I am fond of saying, stop now - just when we’re getting good at it? Rolling Stones: 60’s and 70’s and still rolling. Bruce Forsyth, 80’s. My mum: 94, still going to work and making a living. And of course I’ve also been through seemingly total age-related disaster. Still…

I don’t know about you, but I’m enjoying getting older. Yes, there have been those moments of “oh shit, I’m getting old”. Yes, I get all the fears, and physical things and “hang on, this isn’t me”. I’m young. I’m happening. Who’s that oldie in the mirror?

Well…

Remember young? As many downsides as old has upsides.

And who is that oldie in the mirror? Good question. Who’s asking it? Who’s on your side of the mirror, who seemingly minutes ago was looking at a young face and now is looking at an ageing one? Too deep? No it isn’t. Don’t avoid it. Be okay forever after. Answer the question.

Look in the mirror. There’s that face. Once young, now old (or at least older). Who’s on your side of the mirror doing the looking? Don’t make up some story. Actually look. Do you see a face in the mirror and a face where you are, looking at the face in the mirror? Are there two faces, or just the one in the mirror? Where you are, isn’t there just infinite, ageless, clear openness taking in the face in the mirror, the room, everything? I don’t know. You look and tell me. Anything old on your side of the mirror? Any wrinkles, grey or thinning hair? Anything at all?

The wide open clarity looking in the mirror, the no thing, no nostrils, no lips, no “stuff” where you are, the ageless one who used to see a young face and now sees an older face in the mirror, that’s you. Do not be afraid, This is freedom.
This is the you that never dies. Pure awareness. Space for all the world to happen in. This is where physics and religion agree. Want to know more? Check out www.headless.org. If you’re at all like me you’ll enjoy it, and get a lot more relaxed about death (and age, and living).

Scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have just proved that I am not simply jerking your chain about this. If you’re feeling scientific, check the work of Dr. Henrick Ehrson and Valeria Petkova on vision and identity in the journal PLoS One.