To be or not to be.

As one gets older it's inevitable that time takes on a new significance. One becomes acutely aware that time is finite and the announcements on the TV, that such and such will come on stream in 20 years is being addressed to a different audience.
The time you are awake and active set against the time you are asleep and passive can lead to an obsession, of staying up, or going out, of staying fit and eating the correct diet since the focus is on the time you have left.
It's a state of mind which is prevalent in the old but hardly a concern up until the 60s.
Work and the continuance of a routine that has engaged you for most of your life is suddenly no longer a prop to turn to and as you drift off into the twilight, the fragility of your very existence become acutely apparent.


Should one turn the volume up a notch and party ? Should one go out and search for the good time once again ? The food you put in your mouth, which apparently adds or takes away a year here or there, or the time you spend walking the extra mile, is the outcome worth the effort ?
There is a time and a place for everything.
In your teens and twenties the search for companionship was high on the agenda. In your thirties, forties and fifties the children are such a focus of your time and energy that the time flys as you live their lives through constant worry and involvement.
In your sixties you are in 'absentia', even at times, 'persona no grata', hanging on by the skin of your teeth as they go off and cleave their own path in life.
The question tonight is "what is out there in the wide world for me". What event would bring me alive and set the corpuscles flowing ?
A rock concert, with music that you know, might do the trick but the "action" would really be happening all around since you would be invisible to the others.
An ocean voyage or a trip to some remote part of the world to gawk at the natives.
A house party would be ok but you would be forced to wish they would all go home before they were ready.
There are things which would test your resolve and yet not rely on others to play a part.
Painting, photography, and of course writing are all creative and wholesome but the spark which set one alive in your previous incarnations is no longer the driving force and the satisfaction in coming to terms with that fact, is perhaps the important lesson still to be learnt.