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At 80 and over, with three quarters of our life lived, what are we left with to do? We can still learn, write, travel, contribute to society in many ways, even have a paid job, The mind still exists, whatever state the body may find itself in, perhaps slowing down, or ill but hopefully not demented. There is always work to do, showing that life is worth living until the last gasp. We don't have to find something to do to pass the time, like counting peas in a bowl, as did an aging character in the novel 'La Peste' by Albert Camus. We don't have to structure time.
To compensate for lack of activity, some discuss and trade symptoms and diseases, go for check-ups, EKGs, scans and blood tests, while others go bowling, hiking, or crawl pubs, join Probus, and other clubs, go to concerts, or attend sports meetings of all kinds. There is plenty to take part in, actively or passively. Others just meet for coffee or tea or a pint of beer.
Living to prepare for the on-going life to come can add another dimension to our everyday agenda, and is more private and personal. Developing the mind requires no collection of possessions, material objects, property or status in society. This is the Diogenes' Syndrome! Who needs six houses, a dozen cars, or even several holiday trips a year?
Friends and relatives may fall into the background while we seek quiet for contemplation, concentration and meditation. Love, caring, affection and other positive qualities are always important, not to be neglected, so we need time to practise them.
Spiritualism, psychical research, trans-personal psychology and comparative religion are areas of study which help us understand the spiritual nature of existence, and enable us to separate appearances from actual reality. The material view of reality, presented by Alfred Korzybski's WIGO..., asks 'What is going on in the world?' while other mental and spiritual aspects of life are merely considered as higher degrees of dissociation and abstraction.
This is the exact reverse of the spiritual viewpoint, where the spiritual mind is the centre of being, while Korzybski's WIGO is the RESULT of mind and thought, as the extreme other end of consciousness. Electro-magnetic particles, André Froissard's éons, may have consciousness, but only in themselves, while complete 360 degree consciousness resides in the mind. So to answer Dr. Hora's question, 'What Really IS?' we have to look within our own mind, not look outwards to touch matter and the phenomenal world.
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