The Identity I Have Chosen to Live
My age doesn’t define me. My actions do.
I’ve spent much of my life entering unfamiliar territory, following unexpected interests and learning things I didn’t know how to do.
I’ve changed professions, made mistakes, walked away from things I was good at and started again.
None of it followed a plan.
A BEGINNER AGAIN
I have never seen starting again as a step backwards.
Sometimes curiosity takes you somewhere unfamiliar. Sometimes circumstances force you to change direction. Either way, you find out what you’re willing to learn.
That willingness has taken me into places I never expected to be.
THE BODY ISN’T THE STORY
I’ve spent more than five decades exploring movement, control and the relationship between body and mind.
The photographs show something of that life. But they don’t show the injuries, operations, adaptations or decisions behind it.
My body has changed. So has the way I work with it.
The story is whether I remain interested in, and involved with, the life that is still happening.
That doesn’t mean doing more for the sake of it. It means recognising when something needs to change without assuming that change must mean stopping.
ARE YOU PARTICIPATING OR WITHDRAWING FROM LIFE?
We are surrounded by instructions about how to live. Walk this many steps. Eat this much protein. Sleep this long.
Some of that advice is useful. But knowing what we should do doesn’t tell us who we are.
Participation is not a particular activity, achievement or level of fitness.
It might mean movement, friendship, creativity, work, learning or returning to something you love. It might simply mean remaining curious about the world around you.
There is no prescribed way to participate.
THE IDEA I RECOGNISED
For years, I didn’t have a name for the thread running through my life.
Then an experience with my mother in her nursing home made me question when, and why, people begin withdrawing from their own lives.
I recognised something I’d been living long before I could explain it.
That recognition became Meta-Age.
You don’t join Meta-Age. You recognise yourself in it.
Participation Over Withdrawal. Your move.