“He Who Is Not Busy Being Born Is Busy Dying”*

The truth contained in this statement is difficult to contradict. In the lives we humans lead we are always being challenged by the events we encounter. If we respond to these challenges by growing who we are in some way, then we are in those ways, small or large, being altered, become larger than we were before. Inevitably as we go forward, we shed parts of ourselves even as we grow new parts. If we do not make efforts to add new dimensions as we go forward, we must, try as we might, shrink our sum total. Isn’t that a kind of dying? 

As we age and surrender parts of our lives, sometimes shifting responsibility to others, we become sensitive to this issue in ways that carry even more weight. And as age advances, we confront these realities with even greater force. Indeed, our efforts to keep growing in as many ways as we can, become, more and more, a conscious struggle. We truly feel the full import of the thought expressed by Dylan.

Efforts that we may exert in the direction of expressing whatever creativity our being may harbor can be an important element in our ability to act in the direction of rebirth. Singing, dancing, writing, speaking up, socializing with old and new friends, adopting new habits and practices,  reaching out to family and  friends, drawing a picture, sewing a new seam, baking a new cake, all can be part of our new being. At whatever age we are, more than anything we are fighting irrelevance.

*Bob Dylan-part of a poem presented by the artist during a performance at Albert Hall during his 1965 tour of England. It is presented in a 1967 documentary entitled Don’t Look Back showcasing the very early Dylan and other artists, by D.A. Pennebaker, produced by Court and Grossman.