A milestone 'birthday', every bit as important as 50 or 75, yet passing unnoticed by most people. Today I* am exactly two-thirds of a century old. Eight months have passed since my 66th birthday; my 67th birthday is four months away. We seem to ignore thirds. Today also happens to be the 35th anniversary of the parliamentary elections in Poland that resulted in the communist government losing power – yet the third-of-a-century anniversary came and went on 4 October 2022, unnoticed. (And yes, that day also happened to be my 65th birthday.)
I was born on the same day as Sputnik 1 was successfully launched into orbit, making me exactly as old as the Space Age. My birth was also bracketed by what was as the time, the world's worst and the world's second-worst nuclear accidents (Kyshtym, USSR a week before and Windscale, UK, a week after). The world has changed, the world hasn't changed. Below: AI-generated image, prompted as a celebration of this milestone that I have accorded to myself.
As I get older, I find myself becoming more and more like my father. Noticing, counting, measuring. filling in spreadsheets.
New toilet roll today? The last one has lasted me since 26 April. The daily exercise and diet spreadsheet is now in its 11th year. As medical evidence about the importance of muscular strength into old age builds up, I continue fighting on to beat last year. (One thing I can see is if you don't use it, you lose it – quickly. If I drop doing, for example, press-ups or pull-ups for a few days, it's hard to get back up to that same number even after a week or more.) The daily exercises are also important for building resilience against twists, sprains and falls. And crucially, skeletal flexibility, so my vertebrae don't fuse together (my father was bent over double in advanced old age).
And indeed, from today, I have added the countdown to my 100th birthday, it is 12,175 days away. Will I make it? It is my will to do so; whether my will aligns with the Cosmic Purpose is another matter! Genetically, there's hope (my father died at the age of 96, my mother at 88), environmentally too (I exercise more than my parents and eat a far healthier diet than my cake-loving mother). And there's the spiritual aspect too.
Gratitude is all important. I offer that conscious expression of gratitude several times a day, for health, for peace and security, for food, for all the good that surrounds me. I know I must never take any benefit for granted, nor consider myself entitled to anything.
My spiritual views on life are becoming clearer as a grow older. [Note – grow older. One should grow spiritually, gaining wisdom with age.]
All who seek God (however one chooses to define God) shall find God in their own way. There are myriad paths to transcendence.
My own path? The material and spiritual are separate and yet one; science and religion should get ever closer, until both ways of looking at the Cosmos can finally agree on the nature of reality.
* My body and its ego. The consciousness that's subjectively observing from this bodily platform is eternal.
This time last year:
Marching for Openness and Normality
(People – we did it!)
40th anniversary of the Osieck railway accident
This time four years ago:
Moonrise, Nowa Wola
4 June - a date remembered for...?
This time nine years ago:
Corpus Christi, rural Mazovia
This time ten years ago:
25th anniversary of Poland's transition
This time 11 years ago:
Poland's infrastructure progress
This time 13 years ago:
Wetlands in late-spring
This time 14 years ago:
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Puławska and Pozytywki
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Sarabandy and Karczunkowska
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Trombity and Kórnicka
This time 15 years ago:
Another time, another place
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