Ok. Long story short.
I’m almost 60 and for the first time ever, I’m looking up from the book of life and asking myself — what should I do for the rest of my life.
Now, your first question is probably, “Dude, what and where have you been all your life! This is a question everyone asks almost every single day. Sheesh.”
True. I hear you. But let me explain. And maybe you’ll understand where I’m coming from and my own answer to that question now that I’m old enough and wise enough and brave enough to answer it and live its answer.
I’m kind of like Kafka’s Hunger Artist. If you don’t know the story, it goes like this (yeah, another long story, short).
There was this man in the 1800s and he thought he could make some quick money starving himself to death in the middle of the town square as a “hunger artist”. So he tried it and he found out he was really good at it. All the town folk would pay a few pennies to sit and watch him just be a freak, sitting in a cage, nothing but water and straw, slowly dissolving away.
As I said, he was good at it. He’d last the 40+ days and then have a great payday. People even paid after to watch him eat and return to health!
Then he’d rest up and a month or so later, head off to the next gig, the next town square. The story continues like this (it’s really good!) and the Hunger Artist reflects on why he was so good at starving himself to death. He says it was because he was never ever truly hungry.
Time goes on and the hunger artist attraction falls out of fashion. Kind of like dance marathons or hot dog eating contests did. One time nobody counts his days without food and the hunger artist is forgotten in the straw and he dies there. A tiger, now the thing in vogue, is put in his cage for viewing. End of this long story, short.
So, what’s this got to do with my question — what should I do with the rest of my life?
Well, a lot. You see, I never did ask that question during my life because I was always so damn good at what I did. Maybe not great but good enough, excited enough about everything. No worries, no plan was my plan. And it worked until now. I’ve had a great run, it’s been like shooting buffalo in a corral.
So now, I think of the hunger artist and I sympathize. How to get hungry again, now that I’m not good at anything, anymore? A rejected, almost 60-year-old who’s done it all, got to the top of the heap and now can’t see anything exciting ahead. And unlike Sysiphus, not even lucky enough for my rock to roll back down so I’ll have something to push back up again.
“Our lives teach us who we are. I have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else’s description of reality to supplant your own … then you might as well be dead.” - Salman Rushdie
So what’s next? What’s my answer to this question? What’s your answer to that question?
Well for one — let’s stop asking silly questions like this. Truly. Ain’t gonna do nothing but stress you out. Second. No answer is an answer. We forget that. It’s the one between yes and no. Man’s original virtue, to sit at the poker table of life and just call. Not fold, not bet or raise. Just call.
Let’s see. Let’s all allow life to answer that question for us.
I’m calling for more patience. Patience the Hunger Artist had in spades.