Saturday 10 November 2018

Getting Going at Seventy-two?

Emile Ratelband, the 69-year-old Dutchman who has caused a stir by going to law in order to 'become' 20 years younger, is surely raising many smiles, not to say laughs, all around the world. We know that, whatever the Dutch court may decide (and despite the tendency of the law-courts and others these days not to let mere physical facts stand in the way of their decisions), de heer Ratelband will clock up the magic 'three score and ten' years shortly. That according to ancient if unfashionable authority is the time allotted us.

     After that, it is time for us to realise that life is a gift and a privilege even more than a right! Yet who among us oldies has not sometimes wished to be 20 years younger? I sometimes certainly have  done so myself lately, as I find myself launching into a project that has the potential to go far beyond me. What a pity it didn't happen 20 years ago! Meanwhile, I cannot but ask myself - why bother, and have I the energy for this?
     

     "There you go, you're on a whole new journey now!", said the lady in the social security office when I finalised my pension. "Yes, thank you,"  I replied, "with a one-way ticket!" Having one's basic cost of living handed out by the state is presumably an advantage of age that our Dutch friend can afford to do without. However I see it as a huge privilege, which has freed me up no end to give time to occupations that I rather enjoy, like working on my old wooden boat and writing this blog; but also, darn it,  look where it is all bringing me now!

     Yet this is one of the true advantages of 'living on borrowed time': one can allow oneself the luxury of being 'brought along'. If you delve into the archive of this blog, you may find a reference to a lovely remark that M. le Curé made in the parish newsletter when I was at Le Palais in Belle Isle about a decade ago; he wrote how he enjoyed being with old people 'qui osent, enfin, être eux-mêmes' - 'who dare at last to be themselves'. That saying has stayed with me ever since. It's not however just a matter of 'daring'. The fact is one is much more likely to be free to do it.

Fiona was shocked the other day by a Catholic priest who said in conversation that the idea of celibacy was 'dead in the water'. To both of us, it seems that the main reason for it given by Christ in the Gospels is as valid as ever it was, namely that it is extremely hard to combine following God's will down the road of freedom with the responsibility of rearing a family, 'especially in these end times!'.

There are other reasons besides financial freedom why the broad perspectives of the open road, indeed, I would rather say the open sea, are very likely to open out in one's seventies. Living on borrowed time, one should realise that being alive is more of a privilege than a right. Now is the time, at last, to give up being a control freak, both about oneself and about others. Indeed of course the two go together. But behold, it's when you lose your life that you win it!' Now you can truly let go and let God - let things happen.

'All very well for dreamers and mystics!' you may say. Well, how are the 'people of this world' getting on? Why did the idea of that humungus train rattling down the railroad completely out of control in Australia the other day resonate in the imagination? It made me think of a lot of things, but especially the British Government and its Brexit train. If only they find a way to derail it! I know that will be a mess, but it's likely to be a lot better than careering on to the end of the line. And meanwhile they think that they are 'taking back control'!

So what does 'winning one's life back' involve? Control does have to be in there. We do have to keep to the road, and we so easily deceive ourselves and make mistakes, though hopefully we are less likely to do so precisely insofar as we are able to get our heads around the fact that we are soon going to die anyway. The great thing, and the reason why I sometimes feel more in sympathy with myself as a child than as a 50 year-old man, is to rediscover life as gift. Then we are open to looking around and seeing what's about us.

In a sense this could hardly be worse. Normally sober boffins are telling us that we are destroying the very planet Earth, that if we don't rapidly change in the next 12 years it will become largely uninhabitable, that the oceans and many species of animal are dying, that human fertility itself is in danger of collapse.... Meanwhile people everywhere would rather look at flickering images of reality, with the illusion that they control it, than at the thing itself.

So how do we get to set sail on the sea of freedom, the sea of life? Catch on to any bit of reality, I say, and even if it disappears in your hand, it will have led you onwards into the Mystery! And that is how we are proceeding with O Projeto Nazareno. I sailed into Nazaré with the Anna M very much against my inclination in many ways, though not without asking Our Lady what I should do, and getting a clear reply. Here I find Alec who rips into the old boat, and we discover that, yes, it was a very good thing that we did so.

An old aunt whom I hardly knew died and left me a few quid to enable the work to proceed, but only as far as renovating the hull. Having emptied and cleaned the engine compartment and its filthy bilge, I would much rather not put diesel back in anyway. Alec and I find we have both been thinking about electric drives for boats for years. He looks around at electric motors on the internet, identifies the best one for the job, and finds that it is made just up the road from where he was at the time in his native Devon with his girlfriend. He wanders down there and comes away with the franchise to sell them in Portugal, Spain, France and Ireland.

It just happens that this is the same territory that I called the Gannetsway, when I was looking for a name for my website about 20 years ago, and achieved the freedom to sail it. When I dropped the subscription once, the name was promptly jumped on by some bright-spark in India trying to get money out of me. That's how this blog became gannetswaysailing. It's alright by me. But what prompted me to keep it going, with no commercial basis? Chatting to a wise friend I said, "I wish I could find a way to make money out of it, without resorting to ads or something". He said, "Don't worry about that, just keep writing!"

So now the blog is pretty valuable in giving some credibility for this Nazaré Project. We're applying for big money from the EU under the Portugal 2020 program to revitalise the Portuguese economy, to fund the research and development of regenerative electric drives. The right people to help us along the road seem to be showing up precisely when we need them.

The latest example was when we went looking for a premises yesterday. Alec had identified various places on the internet, and we happened to pull up in a lay-by to consult Google maps. While Alec was looking at his phone I eyed a place across the road, that wasn't advertised at all. I thought it looked the ticket and got out of the van to have a closer look. I was no sooner at the gate than a car pulled up with the owner in it. I asked could the place be rented, was told it could, and soon we were looking around it. It is ideal for our purposes. Now to see if we can put them into effect!

I am as cagey as ever about getting involved with serious financial commitments, and yes, I do wish I was 20 years younger; but it just didn't happen then the way it seems to be happening now. The world itself has changed. Twenty years ago I was that miserable codger going on about doom and gloom, but not so now. Funnily enough, now that the world is more recognizent of the doom and gloom, I am a lot happier in myself, and perhaps more so than I have been since childhood. I am feeling really whole, with all my faculties and gifts functioning together. In absolute terms, no doubt I had a lot more energy 20 years ago, but I wasted so much of it that probably I am able to actually apply more now, even if I am getting a little clapped out in some respects. The gifts of 70 years plus can far outweigh the drawbacks, friend Emile, and being truly positive does not involve any denial of the 'downside' of reality!







     

     




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