Old age is the prime time of senility, regret, gateway to the eternal cold darkness and solitude.
Growing older, our actions, movements, cognitive functions are becoming more incoherent, uncertain.
Our body, our physical being, our mind/soul is getting out of “tune”, out of sync with the surroundings. Something in our bodies and minds is eroding, some force that is keeping us compatible with the surrounding world is weakening on macro scale but also on micro scale.
The entropy of our bodies/minds increases depleting our energy resources. In return, this increases uncertainties of our mental processes and physical coordination. We are slowly leaving the world of determinism and entering the world of unpredictability.
Life is the gallery of moments imprinted on the sand of time. It is hard to understand why we are “blank canvas” at the birth, in other words don’t know anything, while when we become knowledgeable and wise (not everyone) we are destined to die. The answer could be that if it was the opposite, many, at least some, wouldn’t find living this life worthy enough.
Living to constantly struggle, helpless most of the time, having no control over your own existence, life comes down to procreation, serving the evolution/natural selection just as is for any plant or animal. There’s no special status/higher purpose for mind/intelligence in the book of the evolution.
What is life? Life is a tenant that does not pay a rent to the landlord Universe, the fountain of life. As such, it has been (and it is) evicted repeatedly by catastrophic events like cosmic collisions, volcano eruptions, fires, flooding, conflicts, etc., but always stubbornly coming back.
The universe is recycling machine. The Earth we live on is just one garden of the machine where millions of species are let to reproduce, live and evolve for the benefit of it.
The question is what is/are benefit(s) the universe is looking for?

BoNe
Ottawa, March 2025.