Digging for Meaning

On our birthdays, do we really 'turn' a year older? or to put it another way what changes when we grow older? what does it mean to be 35, 59 or 87? there's the reality of degradation of body, accumulation of experiences, calcifying of certain biases and prejudices, getting used to certain rituals and practices and so on. but none of these things are linear. so why should age be? I wonder about notions of age among people in pre-industrial societies. they probably weren't as obsessed about linear growth as we are. Capitalism thrives on an ever expanding baloon of abundance and consumption. So that sense of growing permeates everything. we are supposed to get better, stronger, wiser, faster at everything. if we can't we are supposed to 'buy' tools for it. That's the basis of capitalism. if we stopped that want, the engine of capitalism will come to a grinding halt. Imagine yourself free of that want! no need for 'growth'. no sense of milestones. no

"why are you laughing?" Laughter can be the pin that deflates egos. Whether it was intended or not. The laughter is merely the trigger. It can only deflate egos that are outsized, stretching beyond the reality of self. the one sticking to the skin of self-awareness, doesn't get punctured by anything. At moments like these, laughter is the sound of punctured egos. *** "Why are you laughing?" For a mind that tries to see more, it finds reasons to be amused by. There's the amusingly drunk ant. There's that ever so slight tilt of the wall (or maybe the ground?). There's that scent from someone's perfume that reminds you of the time you threw up the first time you drank. There's an accent which makes you curious. There's that sideways glance your colleague does mid-sentence, that alerts you to your own body's impulse of betraying you when you bluff. There's that profound absurdity of staring at glowing rectangles all day. T