PERFORMER TO PRETENDER

PERFORMER TO PRETENDER

THE PERFORMER

You and I live in a culture where performance is premium. It’s one of the most powerful dynamics pushing people to stay young.

To win in a performance-based world, you have to become highly strategic and tactically clever. Technology has become your friend because it directly enhances your performance. Same with relationships you make – performance enhancers. And you have matured enough to figure out how to deal with people’s bullshit to carve out your lane.

You’ve honed your awareness to see ahead and figure out how to get there before others do. And of course, you’ve mastered spying – you know what your competitors, internal and external, are up to and what they’re thinking.

You find yourself hanging out with particular gossip alliances to keep current with ‘what’s going on.’ And you’ve put together a loose small cohort that keeps each other driving, sharing information, videos, podcasts, and the latest hot tips and chatter.

You’ve now become a sort of alchemist, you can turn subjective into the objective, goals into tangible outcomes. Outcomes that are held by others in high esteem.

You’ve now become a recognized performer. You know how to be, what to do, and how to navigate - to succeed in the culture dominated by Scientific Materialism.

Problem is Scientific Materialism disregards metaphysics, creationism, transcendence, and divinity. Of course, they are non-material, therefore immaterial.

Metaphysics, creationism, transcendence, and divinity can’t be proved by science. Nonetheless these are what’s very much needed on the last third of life’s journey.

None of your performer’s knowledge, skills, emotional and intellectual capacitors, all that you have mastered to become and maintain top performance, simply won’t do you any good when you cross the threshold into late age.

THE FACTS

Age happens. Unstoppable. Unescapable. Inexorable. Relentless.

The mental and physical energy required for high performance cannot be sustained. The laws of physics apply to you too, to your physical body and your mental capacities. Your life, life itself, occurs in a physical universe. The physical universe exists in time.

The second law of thermodynamics clearly states that entropy in every system always increases with time. That means performance levels will always decrease over time. You are a physical system. You age in time, and you’re subject to the “always decrease” in this physics equation.

Yes, you’ve successfully climbed the performance ladder to the top of the building where attainment and aplomb awaited your entrance. But remember, you started climbing this ladder ‘way back when.’

Now, on the roof, the ultimate performance rewards bestowed, rewards with the most cultural, commercial and ego value. Unfortunately, neither cultural, commercial nor ego value enhancement makes any difference when you cross the doorway and walk down the corridor of late aging.

Your role as a performer has played well. You’ve assumed the right characteristics, the appropriate qualities, and the proper mindset. You’re a veteran actor able to perform in this material reality play. Problem is you’re not playing Hamlet; you’ve become Hamlet.

You’ve built yourself into a strong performer, which is extremely difficult to untie. You’ve developed, trained, educated yourself, and have become fully enculturated to be this high achiever. You’ve designed yourself to perform.

You’ve become an action figure.

In late aging, continuing performance-based thinking and behavior will have costs. Substantial costs in the quality-of-life domain. And qualities are what matter most in that last third of your life’s journey.

When you can’t be that exemplar performer, but that is all you have ever known, there is a strong tendency to unconsciously, and many times desperately grasp onto the who you were, not who you are now, and not who you will be when there is no audience.

PRETENDING TO BE A PERFORMER

When the truth is you’re past your prime, and you attempt not to believe it, pretense is the result. A pretense is defined as an attempt to make something that is not the case appear true. A pretense is as bad as a lie. They are both deceptions.

You have become a pretender. Pretending to be who you are not.

I suggest you consider stop working on appearing as a polished performer. In late age, the work that needs to be done now doesn’t require you to perform. It requires you to understand.

Unbundle yourself from your performer and see what’s there. The challenge now is to understand your own humanity. You now become the entire audience. And as this understanding deepens, you are able to understand much more clearly Act 1 and Act 2 of your life. Now you can better script Act 3.

Work on yourself, shine light in the dark corners, realize that whether you believe in heredity or reincarnation, you are unique. Only one of you will ever exist again. Get to know and understand that person.

You are a study of one. Understanding yourself will take you to a place within that makes late aging a place of discovery, with far greater peace, and equanimity. A place that readies you for the end of your life.

Time is short. That horizon is real now.

Even Jackson Brown gets old.

Join the Sangha call on April 19th.

Register here: https://form.jotform.com/230334570253044

The Edge of Aging podcast launches April 29th.

 Sign up to receive episode alerts once the podcast launches on April 29th here: https://app.helloaudio.fm/feed/c5776f72-a240-4f39-af01-0c0813914f79/signup