Paralyzed by possibilities

This past week I’ve been privileged to have a number of thought-provoking conversations.

Of course, all conversations provoke some thoughts, but what I mean is this: I’ve been blessed to get true pushback. Questions that make me see things from the outside. Hard questions. Questions I couldn’t have thought up myself. Expansive back-and-forths, resulting in that uneasy but joyous feeling of growth. Here we go, that feeling says. Unchartered territory ahead.

On some level all territories are new, of course. We are only ever present now, everything changes all the time, bla bla bla.

But I also know, because I am over half a century old, that a certain mental calcification sets in after the age of 35. We get set in our ways, we believe we have at least some part of it all figured out, we put some of the bigger questions to rest whether on purpose, because we are compelled to, or by inertia. There is a reason the 20s are so exciting and exhausting: too many things on the table, too much to figure out at once. I don’t think that level of constant questioning of everything is sustainable with an older body.

And yet. The calcification that comes with age doesn’t just remove the “whys” and the “hows”. It threatens the curiosity that is essential to asking deeper questions in the first place. It prevents us from feeling into so many of the nuances that we might only really see with age. It also, at the most basic level, prevents change.

I am having a moment with the many-layered tensions in this reflection. There is such a thing as too much moveability, just like there is such a thing as too much rigidity. Change doesn’t always mean thoughtfulness. Discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean a need to shift. For today, I feel stuck. Paralyzed by the whirling thoughts in my head.

And so I sit.