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As I approach fifty, I thought it might be apt to put out an extract from a book by one of my favorite writers – Ruskin Bond. Of course, one must bear in mind that there is a difference – for many, lot of it – between turning fifty and turning seventy. And biologically, there indeed is. But when I read (or re-read) these notes (like I do from most good reading) from this book that Bond had written as he approached Seventy, I couldn’t but notice that a lot of what he had written at Seventy holds true even at Fifty, albeit with less caution, less resignation, more hope, perhaps. So whatever it is worth, here are that extract from book titled ‘The India I love’ by Ruskin Bond.
Thoughts on Approaching Seventy
The pleasure, as well as the pathos of life, springs from the knowledge of its transitory nature. All our experiences are coloured by the thought that they may return no more. Those who have opted for perpetual life might find that the pleasure of loving has vanished along with the certainty of death. We are in no hurry to leave the world, but we like to know that there is an exit door.
Creative people don’t age. Their bodies may let them down from time to time, but as long as their brains are ticking, they are good for another poem or tale or song. And what of happiness, that bird on the wing, that most elusive of human conditions? It has nothing to do with youth or old age. Religion and philosophy provide little or no relief for a toothache, and we are all equally grumpy when it comes to moving about in a heat wave or getting out of bed on a freezingly cold morning.
External conditions do play their part in individual happiness. But our essential happiness or unhappiness is really independent of these things. It is a matter of character, or nature, or even our biological make-up.
If you have the ability, or rather the gift of being able to see beauty in small things, then old age should hold no terrors. I do not have to climb a mountain peak in order to appreciate the grandeur of this earth. There are wild dandelions flowering on the patch of wasteland just outside my windows. A wild rose bush will come to life in the spring rain, and on summer nights the honeysuckle will send its fragrance through the open windows.
There’s a time to rove and a time to rest, and if you have learnt to live with nature’s magic, you will not grow restless.