Pod Insights Good Life Project Life’s Hidden Season: When Everything Finally Makes Sense | Mark Nepo About this episode Through ancient Chinese wisdom and personal experience, poet and spiritual teacher Mark Nepo reveals how life's second half can be our most profound creative awakening.
In this intimate conversation about his new book The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life https://amzn.to/4mTwiv2, Nepo shares how aging isn't about decline but rather an invitation to strip away the non-essential and access deeper wisdom, offering a refreshing perspective for anyone seeking to live more authentically at any age.
You can find Mark at: Website https://marknepo.com/ | Mark's Substack https://substack.com/@marknepo | Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/creativity-aging-mindfulness-mark-nepo
If you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Mark https://pod.link/goodlifeproject/episode/NjUxYjNhZDU2NWE1MzEwMDExMDRlN2U5 about resilience, learning to fail with grace, and discovering how every setback can lead us higher.
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0:01 Jonathan Fields? So what if, no matter your age, the most creative, alive, and impactful season of your life hasn't happened yet? What if getting older wasn't just about what you can no longer do, but rather was an invitation to a profound creative awakening? These questions sparked one of the most illuminating conversations I've had about creativity, aging, and what it means to live authentically in life's later chapters. My guest today is Mark Nepo, beloved poet, spiritual teacher, and number one New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awakening, with over a million copies sold and works translated into more than 20 languages. Mark has been called one of the finest spiritual guides of our time. And his newest book, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life,
0:46 Jonathan Fields? it offers this fresh perspective on aging as a time of integration, transformation, and creative revelation. What emerged in our conversation just kind of completely shifted my understanding of creativity and aging. Mark shares how the creative process and introspective process are actually one and the same. He also unpacks the profound difference between legacy and living authentically, offering a perspective that could really transform how you think about your life's impact. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.
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3:00 Jonathan Fields? God, what is this, your 20-something book?
3:03 Speaker 06 Yeah, I know, more than I ever imagined, you know?
3:07 Jonathan Fields? The fifth season, creativity in the second half of life. You've really described, in a way, the fifth season as a celebration of creativity in that second half of life. So I'm curious, what does that phrase actually mean to you?
3:23 Speaker 06 Yeah, well, it actually comes from Chinese lore. And in Chinese lore, the fifth season is this time of year, late August, early September, when the light is shifts, it's kind of golden and everything seems bare and quite clear. And so, you know, Chinese sages quickly use that as a metaphor that the elderhood and aging is that fifth season where we integrate and transform and make sense, if we can, of all we've been through and the many selves we've been in the unraveling and unraveling and things, you know, we let go of everything that's not essential. And so things become bare with that kind of essential
4:08 Speaker 06 light. And they termed it, and I love this, the heavenly pivot into the fifth season. And one of the things, well, we can explore is when I talk about creativity in the second half of life. You know, one of the things I've learned over the years is that the creative process and the introspective process are really the same thing. It's just, you know, like for me, I happen to write it down. But that process is the process of learning and listening and wisdom and compassion and deep love and essentializing our journey.
4:53 Speaker 06 And so when we live fully engaged, and of course, we'll get into more what that means in the second half of life, but really, our life is the work of art. And the ways in which we engage wholeheartedly, authentically, that's how we surrender to letting the greater sense of life shape us. You know, and I think it was John Ruskin, I think I might use this in the book somewhere, who said, and you know, he was an essayist and watercolorist in the 1700s in England, where he said, "The reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what
5:37 Speaker 06 they become by it." And so, you know, I had an early, you know, my father and my mother are gone now, at least 10 years. But my father, we've talked at other times, he was a master woodworker and, and he was, so I'm seeing these like lessons decades later, you know. He was a real creative force, and I'm sure that a lot of that comes in me, different medium. But I remember watching him, I was eight or nine, and he was also in love with the sea and he had built a 30-foot catch that I spent a lot of my youth on. But he would, there was a period of 10 years or more, I think he might have been in his 40s, early 50s, where he was making what were called half-models.
6:21 Speaker 06 He would get plans, blueprints actually, from 18th century ships. And then he would make them to scale, and they were half-models, because they would be mounted on a wall, so it would only be half of the ship. And I was sitting on the top step of our see-through stairs in our small home in Long Island and watching him. One evening and he was with a tweezer on it and he was like pulling little threads of rigging through little dead eyes and and that so stayed with me even though I you know it was like magnetizing and all these years later I realized he was teaching me
6:59 Speaker 06 the secret life of detail because every detail when engaged wholeheartedly opens us to the universal and I and he was modeling for me because he never talked he would not have this kind of like we're having even a
7:14 Jonathan Fields? Different generation.
7:16 Speaker 06 Yeah, he wouldn't have talked but he modeled for me immersion and the byproduct of immersion is excellence. So yeah, we'll produce nice things but unless we're immersed by his immersion, I think he when he was totally immersed like I happened to see, he was in the moment of everyone who ever built a boat. And this is where if I am with you in your pain, I am you and I are in the moment of everyone who ever suffered or in love or wonder or surprise. And so this depth of immersion not only allows life to shape us, it allows us to experience the common center of all life.
7:59 Jonathan Fields? As you're describing your dad and like the way he would just drop into this immersive state, it's almost like, you know, yes, he's creating this this really cool artifact that exists after the process. And while he's doing it, he's co-creating the immersive state for him to inhabit along the way that creates a sense of almost like grace, like what somebody described as flow.
8:25 Speaker 06 Yes.
8:26 Jonathan Fields? Ties in a little bit to something you write about early in the book, actually, this notion of life being about picking things up and putting things down and how what you pick up and what you put down shapes you along the way.
8:38 Speaker 06 Yeah, it absolutely does. And that's in that chapter that I call "Your Profile in Aging." And I also would say that, just as I've learned earlier in life, that, you know, the things we face, like through my cancer journey and most recently, in the last year, my back, needing back surgery, these heightened situations bring into relief the range of choice in quote "our normal spectrum of living." They just heighten them and make them more clear and more acute, and hopefully, we learn from them. And I think the same thing. While I focused this book on the second half of life, because I've always tried to use my life as a case study
9:22 Speaker 06 for the common passages we all go through. Well, now I'm in the continent of aging, I'm 74. But I do feel like a lot of the things that I was coming upon and exploring are really relevant at any time of life. And so, you know, I offered, as you know, there are a set of reflection portals to kind of do an inventory. Where are you in your journey? And one of them is picking up and putting down, you know, what things, what significant passages have you been asked to pick up things? And how has that shaped you? And we pick up things because we're called to it
10:06 Speaker 06 or because we feel the obligation or pressure or expectation from others. But also putting down things, and I think this is a common developmental passage in life, the first half of life in defining who we are, we pick up a lot of things. And we try to see, how am I unique compared to others? And then through great love and great suffering, or just the evolution of years, we are worn to putting things down in the second half of life. Looking back on our life and saying, you know, like each moment has its own insight, its own lesson, its own transformation.
10:50 Speaker 06 But then, as we live long enough, if we're blessed... They form a constellation and they go together in a way we didn't imagine. You know, and so even in teaching, and this is recent, just recently, you know, I've come across and written about these three things, these three rituals from different cultures over time. But only recently, in a conversation with a group, did it come together. So, and they all pertain to what we're, we're talking about here. So, the first is that in India, most of the temples, the steps that go up to them, the last step is built twice as high. Purposely, that the access to the sacred is requires some effort.
11:35 Speaker 06 And it's, it's not about looking good or doing it cool. You just gotta get up that last step however you can. And then a lot of the temples, once you make that step, there are two statues. One is, I think of a snake and the other is a dragon, but they represent attachment and fear. When you make that effort and you can let go of what you're clinging to and move through your fear, the world becomes a temple.
12:04 Speaker 06 You know, these anonymous, kind of, you know, wouldn't think, right? And it's very relevant to aging at any point, whether it's from 20 to 40, 40 to 60, 60 to 80. And the second, it does go from Japan of the wonderful tea ceremony, which is actually an expression of a religion and it's very interesting. By design, the entrance to the teahut is small and low. Because in order to enter the sacredness there, you have to take off whatever is unnecessary that you're carrying or you won't fit. And you have to humbly Get down on the ground to shimmy in because without humility you won't fit.
12:48 Speaker 06 And isn't this very much our journey to cross the threshold into wisdom? It's remarkable. And the third, and again, I had discovered these over the years in different books. I think I've written about them, but only recently did I see them together. They really offer a set of practices in aging, which I wasn't able to get in the book because I only learned it. Which is another example of what we're talking about. And this is in Egyptian culture, and this was used, it was believed that if you died and before you could cross into the afterlife, your heart was weighed on a scale against the feather of truth.
13:29 Speaker 06 And if your heart weighed more than the feather of truth, you held on to too much of your experience. Whether it was grudge, grievance, worry. And if your heart was lighter than the feather of truth, you didn't experience enough. You were hidden from life. So only when your heart was balanced with the feather of truth, will you were allowed into the afterlife. And of course, you know, I think, forget the afterlife. That's a great inventory for living and for entering any aspect of age. So it's also, you know, all of these three lead to, you know, as I'm committed to do,
14:10 Speaker 06 like practice questions for how we're living now, especially today with our society. So I think a lot of people are holding on, making their heart heavier than the feather of truth. Or they're so insulated and not connecting and thinking they made the climb because they saw it on YouTube, that, you know, they're not experiencing life enough.
14:34 Jonathan Fields? I would agree. I think so many of us dance between those two states and really trying to figure out where do we land here and how do we feel all the feels? How do we involve ourselves in the things? How do we care about the things we care about and have a point of view and express ourselves? And at the same time, how do we live with all of that? And how do we know what to hold on to, what to let go of, and when is the appropriate time to let go of? What is it like? There are all these questions around it that we just grapple with for all of our days if we choose to, or we just back away from it all and say, I'm opting out.
15:11 Speaker 06 Yeah, and I think the kinds of things that we're talking about, in the outer world, questions have answers. I need to know the difference between the detergent aisle and the dairy aisle and what's edible. But inwardly, every question opens a practice, not an answer. So very much what you just said, that is one of the practices of authentic living. That is one of the practices that is necessary to keep working our life into a work of art. And that is what do I pick up and what do I put down? And this leads to will and surrender and stubbornness and acceptance.
15:56 Jonathan Fields? And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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17:17 Speaker 01 With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/Bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.
17:47 Speaker 02 State Fair food is getting smaller and pricier. We'll have room for fried cookies. Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?
17:55 Speaker 03 What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.
18:04 Speaker 02 Free phone? Oh, sign me up.
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18:20 Jonathan Fields? It's interesting. It also ties in with something else that you write about also fairly early in the book, this notion of balancing effort with wonder to a certain extent, because I think a lot of us find effort in asking the questions and we find more effort actually in sitting with the questions. And what if instead of looking for answers, you could just sit there in a state of curiosity and a state of wonder about the questions themselves? And say like, I don't like, the purpose of this exercise is not necessarily to land on an answer, but to find wonder in a state of curiosity.
18:55 Speaker 06 And I think any, and rather than answers, I mean, like this kind of inhabiting our lives brings us more alive, you know, like, but we're referring back to my father. So my father loved doing that because it brought him more alive. He wouldn't have had any of these names for it or any of the questions we're coming up with. He just knew when he was able to go down in that basement and work on that boat and get immersed, he came up, man, he was lit. And that's why he said, I want to do that again. You know? And so that's like, how do we follow our liveness? How do we follow our liveness?
19:36 Speaker 06 So this raises, and this is a common, very important kind of, I guess, theme of aging that I've discovered, which I don't think is, you know, unique to me. It's everywhere is obviously that physically the, we encounter diminishment, we encounter limitations, you know, if we, things start to ache and, you know, and, and I know on that side, from almost dying in my thirties from a rare form of lymphoma, you know, I've always had kind of a very black and white sense about health and illness, like as long as nothing's happening, I'm okay. Uh oh.
20:17 Speaker 06 And I realized as I'm now in my seventies, that no longer, I can't do that. I mean, a lot of years I did that unconsciously, but I can't do that because. Not every sensation is a problem or a pathology. You know, as we get older, we're like old trees creaking. And so if I react to every new sensation that way, I'm gonna drive myself crazy. So the first thing is to have a sense of exploration about what's happening. And then on the other side is that not to turn for it, to not to counter, not to rationalize. At the same time that our physical body is aging,
21:01 Speaker 06 our spiritual being and our emotional being are deepening and expanding across our whole life. And so to let both, and you know, obviously if we don't, and again, it's not about answers. It's about being immersed, open, having the quiet courage to enter the inner life and the greater life, then they work together. And if we don't do that, if we don't allow that to happen from inside out, then what's happening from outside in will take over and become everything, which we all know can, you know, and then our world gets really small.
21:43 Speaker 06 And you know, then all of a sudden you're, you need to call the plumber and it's a big deal. It's just a phone call, but oh, maybe I'll do it tomorrow, you know? And we all experience that when, without letting the depths of life in, we get smaller and smaller, and that's in a limiting way.
22:04 Jonathan Fields? I mean, this touches on the whole notion you speak about, about the paradoxes of aging also, you know? One of the most obvious ones being physically. You know, we're watching our body and like you can work out, you can eat right, you can meditate, you can do all the things, but eventually we're all going to experience like some level of diminished capacity until we reach a point where like we've experienced the ultimate diminished capacity, which is a capacity to sustain life.
22:32 Speaker 06 Yeah.
22:32 Jonathan Fields? It's not a, like a problem that is the process that we will all move through. While at the very same time as you're describing, as we experience this very natural process of diminished capacity. We are, and I think if we're open to it, another thing you explore, and we really just sit with it, we experience this deepening of wisdom, this deepening of insight. If we're blessed, this deepening of connection. You know, so there are like these two things that are deeply important to us that are moving in opposite directions.
23:04 Speaker 06 Well, kind of like centripetal and centrifugal force. As the planet, you know, we have gravity pulling in and then we have the spin of the planet pulling out. And I think it's caused me to think about that, you know, gravity, the opposite of gravity is the emanation of spirit from in to out. And we live in between. Because we live in the world, we're a human being, and the human is subject to gravity, and the being is subject to the emanation of spirit. And the noble messy journey of being a spirit in a body in time on earth, this, it's our practice to be here and do this, you know? And I think one of the things I learned from most recent, so back up a second, so in
23:49 Speaker 06 the early part of the book, you know, I use this metaphor of the meteor. And the, you know, as a meteor enters the atmosphere, very few ever reach earth because they burn up. And so what happens is they flake off, so their physical being of the meteor gets smaller and smaller, but they get brighter and brighter till the only thing left is light. I think this is a, an apt metaphor for the journey of a lifetime. And so, yeah, death is not a problem to solve. We are trying to inhabit and be as much light as we can while things flake off. So last year, I had a major back surgery. That was a flaking off for me. Nobody likes the flaking off.
24:34 Speaker 06 And now I'm thankfully, it was very successful, I'm well. But I'm, I'm not back, pardon the pun, to where I was. I'm discovering what the new normal is. Because I'm well, but I'm different. So I think growth over a lifetime, and this is how, this is a metaphor, another metaphor about, you know, I think like we grow like rings to on a tree, you know. So when I was 20 or 25 or 30, I think I was as true as I could be to what I knew about myself and the world. And then I grew. So now I had to be come as true to that as I could.
25:17 Speaker 06 So it's not about one self being false. It's more, it's partial. And as we grow and hopefully each time we grow, there's more, a greater circle inward and outward to be true to. So one of the things I learned during this, you know, during this, there were, there were times, um, and it was my first experience of chronic pain and over like 10 months. And oh, my heart goes out to people who don't find a way out. I was lucky. But during this time, you know, there was a time where I couldn't lift the coffee pot and the mug at the same time. Well, now that I'm pain free a year later, I kind of like lifting them one at a time.
26:01 Speaker 06 And you know, that's part of the humility of this journey. We start out thinking that we're going from here to there, but we're really going from in to out.
26:11 Jonathan Fields? As you're describing that also, there's this, this idea that you tee up as well. That's, yeah, as we age, it becomes less about becoming and more about remembering. And I wonder if that's a little bit of a, all these really interesting juxtapositions that have sort of like energies that are moving in opposite directions. And, but this is instead of the same time, it's sort of like, you know, we so often spend the first couple of seasons of life in this, dropped into this process of becoming. What am I becoming? What am I making? Who am I and what am I creating? And then we like reach a point where becoming starts to take a backseat to remembering as you describe. And it's like, who have I always been? And what has all this becoming taught me about
26:54 Jonathan Fields? actually who I've been since like my earliest memories?
26:58 Speaker 06 Yeah, and I think that, and this has led to, to an interesting insight for me. And, and that is that the difference between the true purpose of memory and nostalgia, and the true purpose of dream, because yeah, we, we, when we're young, we dream forward, and when we're older, we look back. But we're really living still now. And nostalgia is when I look back to a time when I felt very alive, loved, whatever it might be, fully here. Nostalgia is when I think that I, in order to have that again, I need to go back there.
27:39 Speaker 06 But the purpose of true memory is by touching into when I experienced it, how can I see where that still lives in me now? Because it hasn't gone anywhere. That was one circumstance in which I happened to live it, that spark of life. It's always been there. So, the true purpose of memory and the word remember literally means to put the members back together, to be whole again. So the purpose of looking back, really, no, I can be nostalgic and look back to a time and say, but that's just like, you know, looking at the, the guy on Mount Everest.
28:18 Speaker 06 That was then, that was wonderful, it's great memory, but that's not where I live. Whatever was there is still in me. And likewise, I'm 74, I mean, I hope, I mean, you know, who knows? I'm hoping I live to 100. But there's still, even if I do, there's more years behind than ahead. And so, it doesn't mean I don't dream, but in the mirror image of the true purpose of memory, the purpose of dream is seeing what I might become, how I might engage life, so that I can see where it lives in me now. So the true purpose of memory and dream. Is to make us come true.
29:01 Speaker 06 Very often, at any point in life, we work toward dreams and they don't come true. And we get, we think we're a failure. Well, it can be disappointment, but all our dreams are guesses anyway. We're the ones who like then carve them in granite. And if we don't get them, we fail. No, you know, we put all our effort because the dreams may not come true. But by giving our all, we may come true, and that's more important. So yeah, how do we relate? And this is where I think that we're, as we age, we're being asked to learn different skills. Our horizons shift, and this is one of them. How do we relate to both memory and dream?
29:45 Speaker 06 That help us live more fully now. And I think I learned this quite by accident, if you will, back when, you know, in my 30s, I almost died from cancer. So that really truncated. I mean, of course, I had dreams and plans, but not really, you know, I mean, because like a boomerang, they went out there so I could see them. But because, you know, I had almost died at a young age, the future wasn't guaranteed, you know, and really for any of us. So it just boomeranged back to now. Okay, but maybe I won't have it then. So how about now?
30:24 Jonathan Fields? And I agree. I think we spend so much time living in the past and the future. And I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to spend time exploring and also like out there in the future and envisioning and doing the dreaming. And at the same time, there's a cost to that, you know? And the cost is being present with what's going on right in front of you and within you. And I wonder if often, one of the most powerful tools that you write about, you've written about this many times in many different ways over the years, is this notion of really embracing impermanence. Impermanence of you as a human being, impermanence of those that you love, impermanence of the world around you, all the physical things that you see.
31:06 Jonathan Fields? We, as a Western culture, run from that. We are like, we're just culturally wired to pretend it doesn't exist. And yet, acknowledging that it does is, can be just astonishingly powerful. As you described, like you were face to face with this very early in life. And you know, this is something that just becomes a much more practical reality. The later you get into life, as you move through life and you start to realize, oh, I've dealt with some stuff myself, maybe I've dealt with some scary stuff. And then you realize people around you that you really care deeply about have dealt with stuff. And very likely, they didn't succeed at dealing with it, you know? And they're, they may not be around anymore.
31:51 Jonathan Fields? And the more acquainted you become with impermanence, it's been my experience, the more desire I have at least to really savor what's happening in the here and now. But there was this paradox that tells us culturally, no, no, no, no, don't go there. It's morbid, you know, it's a morbid fascination. It's, it's a doom and gloom, like it's just stunningly empowering at the same time.
32:20 Speaker 06 It is, and it's, and I think that part of what's happened in our culture, not only are we isolated, but we have kind of distorted with the inalienable rights in the constitution, which as a social contracts, were probably one of the greatest articulations of societal freedom in the world, but it's been distorted. We're not entitled to happiness. And in running out of fear to happiness and coupling that with entitlement, we think that we have a right not to experience the full spectrum of what it is to be here.
33:00 Speaker 06 And if we do that, just like we were saying, we're offloading the process of being human, we will not experience the fullness of being here. And so impermanence, and of course, we hear that and it means we're all going to die and we will. But that makes life more precious and impermanence along the way is often a gift, especially when we're suffering because nothing stays the same. One of the helpful things during these last year, when I was going through all this chronic pain, I have a dear friend who's a doctor and he had back surgery a few years ago, more, more complicated than even mine. And And he was so helpful because he said, you know, whatever you're feeling today,
33:46 Speaker 06 it's not predictive. It's an aspect of impermanence, like, you know, so we spend a lot of time trying to say, oh, it was worse today. Is that the way it's going to be? And it is just what it is today. And it has no bearing on what it's going to be tomorrow. And this is the process of healing. And likewise, it's the process of living. You know, it was Churchill who said, making plans, planning is essential, but plans are useless. So our, again, our engagement is enlivening, but it's all a gas to get us into the next step of aliveness. And this goes even further back, you know, in Elizabethan times before.
34:31 Speaker 06 So there was a word that was used, it came from the Latin. It went back to the ancient Greeks, demonian. Demonian meant a, an attendant spirit that was, could be affirming or challenging. And somewhere in the Elizabethan age, that word was split into two words, angel and demon. So now, anything that's challenging is to be avoided, is even seen as evil. And of course, that thwart our growth. And in the Native American tradition, that spirit was known as the trickster spirit, not because the spirit was deceptive, but because we were welcome, almost like, you know, the Chinese koans,
35:16 Speaker 06 we were welcomed into situations that didn't make sense and dropped us into a different reality than we expected. So we were quote, tricked, out of our patterned thinking. But now, you know, we are entitled to happiness. We only want to seek the angels, the affirming side. And, you know, you see, we get less and less capable of meeting life.
35:42 Jonathan Fields? Yeah, and are we really? Can anybody say that they're any happier because of that? They're any more fulfilled, they're satisfied with their lives because of that? Pretty doubtful there.
35:54 Speaker 06 And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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36:43 Jonathan Fields? City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. Good Life Project is sponsored by TinCan. So if you grew up in the 70s or 80s, you probably still remember your best friend's phone number and stretching the kitchen phone cord around the corner for privacy. Our executive producer, Lindsay, wanted that same freedom for her kids, eight and 10. So in January, she got them a TinCan. Now, friends call the house to chat, make plans, and check in without borrowing her phone. They even keep a handwritten phone book next to it. I kind of love that. TinCan is the new school way for kids to talk with their friends. It's a secure landline that lets them call all their favorite people, but with parental controls to keep them protected.
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38:00 Speaker 01 With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/Bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.
38:34 Jonathan Fields? As we age, as we've discussed, okay, so eventually there's a sense of impermanence. We will lose a lot of things, including eventually ourselves. There's diminishment that happens. But part of the repeated invitation throughout the book, and then you actually at one point later in the book really get explicit about is this notion that despite loss, despite diminishment, the invitation is to perpetually say yes to life. Say yes over and over and over. And that caught me in no small part because of the sentiment, but also because I remember reading quite a while back that Viktor Frankl's iconic book, Man's Search for Meaning, that was actually the westernization of the title. The original German, from what I understand, translated directly was nonetheless, say yes to life.
39:16 Speaker 06 Oh, I didn't know that. That's beautiful.
39:19 Jonathan Fields? It's this sentiment that, you know, like, it's like a yes and sentiment. Well, yes and, like, this stuff is happening that maybe I wish wasn't happening. But it's not a reason to start saying no to either that experience or to keep making your life smaller and smaller and smaller, saying no to all experience in the name of trying to avoid any further diminishment or loss.
39:41 Speaker 06 And this opens up a huge paradox that we have to inhabit, and that is saying yes to life doesn't mean that we deny how hard things are and that we have to accept and express. So, you know, when I'm going through difficulty, you know, I didn't want to have back surgery, but I needed it and it hurt and it was difficult. And, you know, I wasn't every day going, oh, this is wonderful, yes to life. But in the larger sense... I was saying yes to life, not just because I was saying yes to the surgery, but this is at the heart of so many things. So, you know, this is at the heart of, you know, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, Broken Hallelujah.
40:23 Speaker 06 It's not someone who's seen the light, it's a broken Hallelujah, you know? It's not someone who's pious and doing all the right things and seeking happiness. We're broken open and, you know, and then grace hits us or holds the brake or, you know? So a metaphor for this is you and I are on a raft at sea and then, you know, a terrific swell comes and smashes our raft and we're out there hanging on the raft. Not a good day for us. And it doesn't diminish the majesty of the sea. And holding both is really, I think, at the heart of the story of Job, or even the story of Noah, or even at the heart of the existentialist Sartre and Camus.
41:07 Speaker 06 You know, just imagine, these guys lived through, they came of consciousness in a ruined world. Literally, you know, they went out on the streets and nothing, but all of Europe. So you can understand how they, the philosophy, the worldview that they came up with. But there, there we are, you know, there we are. And especially like Camus' myth of Sisyphus. And if, for those who are listening, of course, Sisyphus is this very cruel and evil king who's punished by the gods for his cruelty to roll a rock up a hill forever. He gets at the top, the next day he's back doing the same thing.
41:51 Speaker 06 And Camus really concludes, we've got to love the journey, again, regardless of result. And I would offer a counter possible net. What if Sisyphus, and this is where we can evolve this way, from our partial-heartedness, the mistakes we've made, the inadvertent ways we've hurt people, but we can, what if Sisyphus was a benevolent king?
42:19 Speaker 06 And the gods rewarded him by saying, "You're so kind, you can roll a ball of light up a hill forever, and give light to whoever you see, and you'll get to do this forever." And again, with picking up and putting down, that's the journey of every life, because some days we wake up and it's a rock, and some days we wake up and it's a ball of light and I can give it away. And that's, yeah, that's, you know, when it, when it's a, a rock, we need not to forget that it can be a ball of light. And that's saying yes to life. You know, uh, Doug Hamerschall, the second Secretary General of the UN
43:00 Speaker 06 in the sixties, and he had a journal, a very profound journal, called Markings. And in there, he said, uh, basically, I can't quote exactly, but he said, you know, "I don't know when or how, but somewhere to someone I said yes, and I didn't even know what the question was. And from that day forward, I knew that my life in self-surrender had a purpose."
43:27 Jonathan Fields? I wonder if one of the things that we also struggle to put down is not a physical thing, but is expectation. And not just our own expectation, but expectations that have been layered upon us by culture, by society, by generations of like, this is how you should be in the world. This is how a person like you operates in the world. And we, so much of our decisions in life are driven by this. So many of our investments and resources and action and, um, relationships are driven by this. And we are told that if we, if we should ever put those down, which translates to failing to meet expectations, then we are a failure.
44:11 Jonathan Fields? We have failed. And yet, when we can divorce ourselves from that, I feel like it's almost the ultimate letting go, which may feel a failure in the moment, but ultimately for so many, it feels closer to truth and maybe even freedom and joy.
44:28 Speaker 06 Well, and I think this is Part of the journey of aging is we, just like nature is eroded over time to reveal its inner beauty. You know, either along the way, great love and great suffering will crack us. But if we're blessed not to experience great suffering, hopefully love. But, you know, we will erode over time to that inner beauty. And so then we, this is the process of individuation where we no longer comply or resist. But we get to say, this is my true inheritance.
45:07 Speaker 06 And if I have a direct connection to it, well, then, you know, I have a dear friend who also, he, he just retired a few years ago from running a family sports store that his father started. And he connected to that on his own way. So that his connection coincided with his father's connection. So he wasn't just doing it out of obligation. So it's not obeying or resisting, but finding what is it that, that is our true inheritance? Which we can only know if we work toward having our life be the work of art. And interestingly, you know, if you go all the way back to the myth about the Tower of Babel.
45:49 Speaker 06 One of the reasons that it all fell apart, well, it was originally thought of as the human family was getting big enough that people were starting to live more than just in one place. And if it really existed, it did actually, they suspect it was in somewhere where Iraq is, you know? But the elders said, well, you know, we'll want to build a tower higher than anything. So that if our children and our children's children decide they want to come back, they just have to look up and they'll find their way home. Well, not a bad idea, but it took generations to build it. So by the third generation, you have grandchildren living someone else's dream. And they're going, I don't give a shit about this tower.
46:33 Speaker 06 Well, my grand, well, I don't know why he, granddad wanted that. I don't want to do this. And once you're building someone else's dream.
46:42 Speaker 06 Then it took over a year to carry one brick to the next place. And if the worker fell, they mourned the brick over the worker. So when we lose connection, direct connection, or we build someone else's dream, we start to value things over people. And then we start, we stop being able to understand each other. And I think as we age, as you're saying, we, we start to be able to choose to put down those barriers.
47:09 Jonathan Fields? Talk to me about the notion of legacy. As we age, I think a lot of us hit a, a moment where we're kind of like, huh. I've always had a weird relationship with the word because I'm not in any meaningfully way connected to it or driven by it.
47:25 Speaker 06 Yeah.
47:26 Jonathan Fields? You know, I've always kind of felt like for me, the only thing that if legacy matters to me in some meaningful way, the only way it shows up in my life is have I treated those I love dearly in the way where they feel like they are loved dearly? And just been a good human being while I'm here on the planet. I don't particularly care about anything else. I don't need anything physically left behind.
47:48 Speaker 06 Yeah.
47:49 Jonathan Fields? To say, oh, that person existed, they did this. We have really weird feelings about legacy and, and often very different feelings about it.
47:57 Speaker 06 So, well, thank you, and I so resonate with, with your sense of it. So legacy, and these are all connected to things we've talked about because if we do not, are not connected to life directly, then we seek worth outwardly, which never fills us. And because it's an inside job and it's connecting to all of life. You know, if we have worth, it's because we're connected to the worth of life itself. So in my feeling, you can't plan legacy, you can't direct it, you can't manipulate it. It's not about having your name on a building. And again, I, I think we go to stars and I use this image in talking, you know, stars,
48:41 Speaker 06 when they've completely burned out of all their light, their light still is cast for hundreds of years after the stars are out. And so very much in the spirit of what you were sharing, I think legacy is the byproduct. Of being fully here, kind, loving, authentic. And it's not something we have to worry about or plan or try to achieve it like stars. If we give our whole being while we're here, our light will continue beyond us. And it's not ours to know where and what it touches.
49:25 Speaker 06 And I think that happens all throughout literature. I mean, you know, when I connect to a poem by Tzu-Fu from the 700s in China, it's because his authenticity is still shining across hundreds of years. And if I'm open-hearted, I can touch into it. So it's not something we control or design. It's something that is beyond our even our knowing at all, but is a byproduct of being fully here and loving and caring now.
50:04 Jonathan Fields? Yeah, and I think a lot of us start to dip into that once you're later in life, where you start to think, okay, God willing, I have a lot more time on the horizon, but I'm getting glimpses of the horizon, maybe here and there. And we sometimes in ways I don't want to get glimpses. And it brings us, I think, a lot to thinking about this notion of legacy. And even if you think about, well, it's really about just how I'm living in the here and now. Sometimes we feel like, but I have so much time before this moment where I wasn't showing up the way I wished I had shown up. And that, does that diminish? Like if I start to be the way I am in the world now, or like be the way I want to be, or I wished I had been in the world now?
50:48 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think this raises, you know, and I always, this is another humbling paradox. Of course, being human, we go, oh, if I'd only known that 10 years ago. We're always right on time. One of the Zen little sayings, anonymous Zen sayings is a, a apprentice asks his master, why is the road to freedom so long? And the master says, because it has to go through you. And you know, when I was younger, I thought that was a critical teacher. But as I've aged, I've learned, no, that was a geographical answer. Because the continent of each of us is vast. Because it has to go through you, you know?
51:29 Speaker 06 And so, we are always, and this reshapes, you know, the word regret. What it really means is regreeding. So, of course, we feel bad about things we've done that have inadvertently hurt others, or whatever it might be. Or that's, of course, again, like memory, the real purpose of regret is, what can I learn when I meet this again? So again, to resist through guilt or feeling bad to live in the past. But everything is an apprenticeship for now, and it could take, yeah, we're just seeing things at this stage of life, and we're right on time.
52:14 Jonathan Fields? That feels like a beautiful place for us to wrap up as well. So I have asked you this question in past conversations, but it's always a few years between, and sometimes it evolves in this container of Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase, "to live a good life," what comes up?
52:31 Speaker 06 For me, a good life is being wholehearted when I can, listening deeply, both inwardly and outwardly, to being there for others without prescription or judgment. And yeah, there's no, you know, really trusting the heart. You know, my heart has been my greatest teacher. Not because it's my heart, but because by living wholeheartedly, it opens up to all of life. And then that helps to shape me. You know, paradoxically, one of the rewards for being all of who we are is then we can welcome all that we are not.
53:15 Jonathan Fields? Hmm, thank you.
53:18 Jonathan Fields? Hey, if you loved this episode, say bet you'll also love our earlier conversation with Mark about resilience, learning to fail with grace, and discovering how every setback can lead us higher. You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here, do me a personal favor, a seven second favor, share it with
54:01 Jonathan Fields? just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even, then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
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55:30 Speaker 01 With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.
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