THE LIFE FORCE

The only thing I can conclude from the fact that I'm 85 and so damn healthy is that the libido is the life force. I've always had a strong one, and still do. After all, what are we here for except to pass on the genes and help them survive? (Have you read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins? A wonderful book!) Think it over: strip away the intellect and imagination, which are, after all, merely survival tools that have emerged in the course of our animal evolution, and what do you have?

Meaning and morals are man-made concepts that have a great survival value for the individuals and societies that have evolved to this stage of life. Especilly the God concept. God didn't invent us; we invented God. Spirituality just proves that we're part of a whole and that every particle and atom in the universe is related. We connect without through prayer and meditation, or simply by letting ourselves "sense" our connection.

The voice of guidance that comes from within might be called our Inner Resource. It's simply the sum of all the DNA we have trailed with us from the time the first animal crawled out of the slime. All that art and intellect have created are great fun; also the "real" worlds we have created and in which, young people in particular,live and take seriously.

If we don't dive into that pool of "life" when we are young, and for most of our lives, what else is there to do beyond the passing on of the genes? In other words, this wonderful world we have created out of art, science, and other intellectual endeavors is simply to keep us busy, make life fun, to "progress",and give us the sense of enjoying this life we call reality, while the real reason for our being here, passing on the genes, seems to be just part of living, and not the whole.

Great life, if you don't weaken, as they say. One of the more interesting things about old age is finding onself dissociated from the world of the young, the earnest, and the ambitious, as if money, success, fame, reputation, or anything else in this world we have created is of worth at all.

The truth is, they aren't. But they are part of the striving that is life, and that's why we make them important. Finally, when we get old enough, we're able to let them go. Actually, with a sigh of relief. That leaves us with the enjoyment of all the culture, including history, that we have created. God created the physical world, which we enjoy and which keeps us busy with its changes, some of them abrupt; but we have invented the world we live in. How wonderful! Enjoy.