Alan Watts on Late Blooming

"Ultimately, of course, it is absolutely impossible to understand and appreciate our natural universe unless you know when to stop investigating.”  ---Alan Watts, What is Tao?

Stopping is the natural antidote to our ingrained belief that everything must be bold and fresh and ready in an instant.  

To stop investigating, we assume, is to stop living, to retire from the world, to let the brain grow numb.  Yet Watts is telling us our need to be in constant motion is a cultural addiction. 

Stopping is the most efficient way of getting sober, of re-collecting who we are.

It’s not a one-time act but a lengthy process of relinquishing.  We begin by stripping away our fascination with velocity, our need to mainline speed.  Slowly we move away from the RPMs to focus on the stillness at the center of the wheel. If we are lucky, we may achieve what T.S. Eliot called a state of simplicity “costing not less than everything.” 

Insight, comfort, and a sense of being at ease in the world are achieved more readily once we cease to identify with the private “I” that is always prodding and investigating.  And once we step away from the heroic ego that craves another challenge and administers a harsh rebuke when we fail to keep up with its forced march. 

Late Bloomers have no choice but to reject this pact and allow themselves to be made anew. We can't get away with a surface renovation—a reshuffling and repackaging of old skills.  Or as Watts might say, with planning the same old trip and expecting to reach a different destination. 

“In our restlessness we are always tempted to climb every hill and cross every skyline to find out what lies beyond, yet as you get older and wiser it is not just flagging energy but wisdom that teaches you to look at mountains from below, or perhaps just climb them a little way.  For at the top you can no longer see the mountain,” Watts says.  “And beyond, on the other side, there is, perhaps, just another valley like this.” 

Late Blooming is not about scaling another hill but stopping to look at the leaves that have gathered at your feet, marveling at the point where a frantic journey turned into an unexpected pilgrimage to the center of your soul.

Watts writes: “An old aphorism from India says,  ‘What is beyond, is that which is also here.’ And you must not mistake this for a kind of blasé boredom, or a tiring of adventure.  It is instead the startling recognition that in the place where we are now, we have already arrived.  This is it. What we are seeking is, if we are not totally blind, already here.”

If you are being called by “newness” I’d like to suggest that this depends not upon a change of scenery but upon a subtle integration and acceptance of what you have within.  To put it another way, you’ve been to the summit and planted your flags on distant peaks.  But who has done the climbing? What awareness have you brought to the hand-over-hand ascent? Have you noticed more on the way up or on the way back down?

In the life cycle we go through many reinventions, yet if we do our best to stay awake and aware, the essence of who we are comes clearer. Each articulation of our being is simpler, more pared down, somehow closer to the truth.

Of course the ego interferes with its constant worry: what will happen if I cease this endless chasing after summits?  As Late Bloomers, we have the task of slowing down and engaging in a different way. If you want endpoints and evaluation measures, think of Matisse entertaining himself with paper cutouts when confined to his sick bed, of Picasso’s vibrant energy condensed, in his late work, into a single line of eloquence, and of Beethoven’s last quartets, written when he was fully deaf. 

After all your striving, you may realize what you have been seeking is a way of stopping, silently observing, settling in, realizing that there is no place else to go.  

“…If you must follow that trail up the mountainside to its bitter end, you will discover that it leads eventually right back into the suburbs,” Watts says. “But only an exceedingly stupid person will think that is where the trail really goes.  For the actual truth is the trail goes to every single place that it crosses, and leads also to where you are standing and watching it.  Watching it vanish into the hills, you are already in the truth beyond…Every stream, every road, if followed persistently and meticulously to its end, leads nowhere at all."

Take some time to sit quietly with these questions: 
What is the one value I keep coming back to?  
In what ways can I stop changing and adapting? 
If I stop investigating, what remains?  

More from Alan Watts:

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.                          

Past and present are real illusions; they exist in the present which is all there is. 

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.  

Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water.  You don't grab hold of the water when you swim because if you do, you will become stiff and tight...and sink.  You have to relax, and the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging and holding on.  

Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who don't realize they are one and the same process as the universe. 

Find meaning in your work

  Toronto's Center for Work and Spirit is asking people to consider how they feel about their jobs.  They've opened the dialogue with these questions: Does your daily work inspire or exhaust your spirit?  Is it mostly about making a living and getting things done? Or can it be more than that, so you have more life, so you have work that matters and helps create a better world?  How can all of us do our jobs with more love, soul and purpose--so we raise up and inspire each other and deepen our humanity? 

       In the US, corporations are discovering the Buddhist concept of right livelihood. More executives consider work to be a spiritual practice, and companies like Apple, Prentice-Hall, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, Nike, and Time-Warner now offer  meditation rooms as perks  along with cafeterias and gyms.  

       In a survey taken six years ago, 85 percent of American workers report that their leaders' spirituality has had an impact on their company.

Globally we're seeing the rise of the B-Corporation (B stands for "Benefit") that encourages businesses to give back to the community.  Today there are more than a thousand certified B-Corps in 33 countries.  Charter members include Patagonia, makers of outdoor gear; Badger Balm, producers of natural cosmetics; Ingage Partners, management and tech consultants who give a quarter of their profits to employees plus time off to volunteer for social causes; and Etsy, an online global market for handmade goods that provides loaner bikes and organic meals to employees and donates office compost to local farms.  

These are pretty impressive gains. But what if you don't have the good fortune to work for an enlightened firm that offers Insight Meditation on your lunch break and actually cares how much you like your job? 

What if you’re just scrambling to hold your place in a volatile economy?  How do you find meaning in your work—or in your daily search for it? These are issues of special interest to Late Bloomers who are trying to find their niche in a crowded and chaotic marketplace. 

In a world where companies fold overnight and entire industries are prone to creative disruption, holding onto your spiritual purpose can be challenging. At that point, however, standing by your inner values is even more important. Spiritual grounding is essential if you have to give up your familiar work identity and find new ways to use your skills. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson considered the effects of the marketplace upon the soul in in his essay, Compensation:  “The changes which break up, at short intervals, the prosperity of men are advertisements of nature whose law is growth. Every soul is, by this intrinsic necessity, quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, and laws and faith, as the shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case…and slowly forms a new house.” 

As the old forms break down, we start searching for the fundamental talent we draw upon  no matter what job we do.  There is no denying our vulnerability in the moment we cast off that outer shell and leave behind everything that is safe and known. Yet Emerson believed discomfort accompanies each stage of evolution—that the economy itself is nature’s tool, requiring us to surrender the old so we can discover an unexpected gift or calling and somehow be made anew.

It is good to remember that what we view as loss or failure, or decry as an unwanted change, is strongly allied with the archetype of growth.  

Keeping the big picture in mind is helpful. And so is the daily practice of gratitude.  Last week I found this comment on a website dedicated to our changing workplace: “We started talking about how we practice spirituality at work when we realized that Mary Ann was bowing to her computer at the end of the day."  When asked about this ritual, Mary Ann explained that it was a gesture of thankfulness, similar to what Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk, did when he praised his cooking pots for helping him serve God.

Simple acts can provide a sense of authenticity and presence, enhancing the way we relate to routine tasks.  This kind of ballast is essential as we reinvent our organizations and ourselves.   

Today’s questions:

Is your job aligned with your core values?  Try this test

What personal changes are you being asked to make to keep pace with the New Economy?

Are you gerbiling and always living at the mercy of a deadline, or are you living in real time, and consciously connecting with the spirit of your work?

Can you pause for five minutes to simply be here now?

Work as a spiritual practice

At the end of the work day, do you feel more joyful, more connected to your soul? What are you willing to sacrifice to keep that sensation alive?

My friend Peg Flynn was an all-purpose caregiver during the HIV epidemic in San Francisco in the 90s. She functioned as a massage therapist, medical power of attorney, financial planner and bedside wrangler coping with some very painful family situations.

She didn’t charge anything: instead she put out a “giving bowl.” Clients made a donation, according to their means, or by calculating what they felt her care was worth.

Flynn went on to found The Caregiving Zone and The Good Death Institute, educating people about end of life issues, garnering a prestigious Jefferson Award as well as recognition from the US House of Representatives, yet last year rising rents forced her out of the Bay Area.

Originally from Chicago, she moved back to the Midwest to keep her overhead down and get back to basics. Now when people ask how big her organization is she says, “I’m it.”

This downscaling is often part of Late Blooming and of reinventing work. At a certain point it's no longer about forming organizations and institutions but about finding a way to be of service and to free up your time so you can be available in the moment.

There are advantages to traveling light, Flynn says, noting that it’s easier to respond to her individual clients. “This way of working is really about inhabiting your true self.” The measure of success becomes your ability to grasp the intricate complexities of each person, each situation. To concentrate on authenticity and presence.

“Approach any job as a spiritual practice and you will experience whole new levels of meaning,” Flynn adds. “People around you will open up to new possibilities. This kind of creativity is contagious.”

Flynn is one of those people who sees her labor as a gift not an obligation.

Thirty-five years ago the scholar Lewis Hyde described the nature of the Gift Economy. “Unlike the sale of a commodity,” he wrote, “the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved.” Indigenous societies held give-aways, distributing their surplus to those in need, and early cultures operated on the principle that resources must be available to all.

First published in 1979 as The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, Hyde’s inspiring book has been reissued with the subtitle: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.

While The Erotic Life of Property sounds like an X-rated title  it reminds us that our labor is a spiritual offering not just a product to be marketed, an idea to be flogged. The emphasis on creativity and imagination reminds us that our lives are the one true medium and that what we get from work is an opportunity to explore new aspects of ourselves.  The artist's willingness to be transformed is always at the core of his  particular gift. 

Ultimately the Gift Economy applies to anyone who is motivated by the wish to serve and to live from this same well of authenticity.  

What gift have you bestowed today? Who was the beneficiary?What did you gain from the exchange? What are you willing to risk to keep showing up this way?

For more on the spirituality of work, stay tuned.

Why late bloomers take the long route to success

Late Bloomers are always exploring, searching for new ways of getting there. But our long stage of development can look to friends and family like failure because so much of the journey takes place out of sight.  

This blog is a love letter to all of you who are bravely exploring some new territory---thrilled by the scenery, but held up, now and then, by the detours that simply aren't on the map.   If you're not sure where you're headed  (that’s sometimes half the fun), keep on driving.  If only to find out what new surprises are waiting for you down the road. 

Until recently Late Bloomers have made up a relatively small percentage of the population.  Now more and more people are committing to new creative projects after midlife, and taking the time to develop new skills and talents.  That means a longer learning curve—and a new developmental model, one that's reminiscent of the artist who saves his best work for last.

In 2008 article in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell explored the difference between genius that shows itself at an early age and the kind that comes only with tempering and maturity.

While Picasso arrived on the scene with a developed style, Cezanne first had to learn how to draw and then translate what he was feeling onto canvas. 

Wunderkind Jonathan Safron Foer went in search of his grandfather’s shtetl, sat in a Prague hotel room and penned the first 100 pages of his best-selling novel in 10 days.  Yet Dallas attorney Ben Fountain quit his job and took 18 years to hone a collection of short stories. Four of them were set in Haiti—a place he visited 30 times! 

                       

Gladwell’s point was that Late Bloomers are still learning their craft at the same time they are dealing with their own perfectionism.

For the past three decades, I’ve been playing the long game of the Late Bloomer.  I’ve had several incarnations—filmmaker, author, activist, nonprofit founder, seminar leader—and learned something from each of them.  But only now, after all this experimentation, has my real focus become clear. What I’m passionate about is this recreation of the self—the way we review the journey so far, looking for new landmarks and new clues.  

A revised life plan takes time to coalesce.  In the meantime you need patience, and the kind of open-ended time you experienced in childhood—as much as you can buy. 

Children are naturally in touch with their inner artist—because convention and the rote demands of education haven’t had a chance to screw them up. Back then, lives, and expectations, were open-ended.  The trick is to get back this sense of possibility while reshuffling all the skills that you’ve picked up.  

This may mean working on several different levels all at once. Think of it as building a hologram of hopes, desires, and possibilities overlaid with your full range of expertise and talents.  And whatever happens, don't lose heart.  This kind of vision doesn’t come together overnight.

The good news is that Late Blooming is no longer a rarity.  More and more of us are preparing the ground for a new creative life.  This time, it's not about the trip that others want you to take, or the shoulds and oughts that are built into your resume.   

It's about finding, and following, the road that calls to you.

Who gets to see your creative process?

The other day I took a brief sabbatical from my obligations, posting a line from the poet Mary Oliver on my cottage door. 


I’d scrawled her fierce incantation in bold magic marker:  
"Don’t bother me.  I’ve just been born."

  
What's involved in this act of self-creation? 

You begin by making time to be. To follow hunches or write down your dreams.  Pick up your paints and play with the color green.  Read poetry with abandon.  Dance barefoot in the moonlight. Tell your story to a grove of trees. 

There's a letting go that precedes this sudden burst of artistry. Quite simply, Late Blooming requires us to relinquish those relationships that diminish and distract--to stop being so easy going and polite and cultivate creative ruthlessness.  

No apologies! No distractions! No to the soul-drainers, the wishy-washy, the un-committed, the folks who always hedge their bets. (Really? Are these the people you want to hold your tender, newborn self?) 

And what about all those energy sappers?  The friend who wants more time than you can give, the relative who relies upon your kindness but secretly resents you for it. the colleague who forgets your name when its time for handing out the credit?  What do these people matter now?

When you fall in love with the creative process, you will have little patience for sullen, the ungrateful, the whiny and the disaffected and feel personally affronted by those who can't commit.  The creative curmudgeon in you says: Waffling is a vice for the young and uninitiated.  It’s not a badge that proclaims your open mindedness.  

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”   That’s how Henry Miller saw it with his keen night vision. You're all in, no matter what the risk.

Late Blooming is a wild fling with the unknown.  A passion that grabs you by the shoulder when you least expect it saying, "Time to change your life."  So welcome this affair.  Don’t pull away from it.  As to the rest, allow yourself to say, Good riddance and goodbye! 

Today's assignment:  Do one activity you love and rarely have time to pursue. 

Decide who and what you're going to invite across the threshold of your life.

And for extra credit, break a rule.  Stand in the middle of a great cathedral and dare to pierce the silence with the power of your song.  

Late blooming often starts with a burning of the fields

Why late blooming?  This title comes what I've learned about the burning of the field before coaxing forth new shoots. 

Four years ago, I was living in a cedar-shingled house overlooking the San Francisco Bay with my husband, a tweedy rare book dealer, and a skateboarding stepson. At the time, I earned my living coauthoring books with charismatic CEOs. 

This was already my second life—after a varied career as a journalist, activist and seminar leader, I was reveling in my Eden of domestic bliss. For ten years, I gardened, decorated, and made elaborate family dinners while working with my clients and editing my husband’s books.  When I finally decided to tackle my novel, the Great Recession hit. Our income tanked as my stepson was heading off to college.  So we decided to pull up stakes and leave the Bay Area.  The day our house went on the market, I was diagnosed with cancer and had no idea how much future I had left.

Six weeks after my (blessedly successful) surgery, we packed up the van and headed to Northampton, Massachusetts, just in time for a tornado, an earthquake (in New England!), and a record-breaking blizzard. On Christmas Eve, my husband left me for a woman he barely knew.  For the next year, I worked my through shock and rage and utter helplessness, wondering how I’d ever manage to feel sane and whole again.  

It took another three years—and another wagon train back to California to write and reconnect with my beloved friends—to realize that "there is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story."

    

Late Blooming is what happens after dieback, after that season of relinquishing, after the burning of old growth.  

Of course, this process isn’t always so dramatic. Still, everyone copes with some version, perhaps involving a work transition, a changing marriage, financial concerns,  health issues, or the shock of empty nest. While more people than ever are going through this rite of passage—an estimated 76.4 million baby boomers here in the US alone—it's curious that we still don’t have a proper name for it.

The same sociologist who invented the term “adolescence” in the early 1900s called the time after we have finished raising our families and establishing ourselves in our professions “Indian Summer.”  Not bad.  This evokes the golden sunset, viewed from a comfortable bench. 

Autumn has always been my favorite season and perhaps that’s why I’m so fascinated by the stage of life that’s named for it.  But I'm not interested in the fading light--no matter how pretty a glow it leaves.  Instead I want to focus on the energy rising in a single organism, from roots to shafts to  shiny leaves.  I'm fascinated by the untamed trajectory of unexpected growth, the sheer brazenness of late blooming.  Of ripening a second time.

In my part of northern California, autumn is the bright red flame of Japanese maple and Western redbud and blazing torches of Witch Hazel.  It’s also a time for baby-blue eyes and red poppies, for meadow foam and a candy-striped flower called "farewell-to-spring"--hardy California natives that do well in a year of drought. 

If you examine your own life, chances are you’ll discover some new plant that’s trying to sprout.  For me it was the call to explore the possibilities open to us as we move through this transition.  

Boomers are approaching these Late Blooming years like no other generation has before.  We are beginning to redefine our work and align our values with the marketplace. At the same time, we are discovering new depths of feeling, new reservoirs of strength and authenticity in our inner lives.

Naturally, this kind of flowering doesn’t happen on its own. We must put on the gloves and kneel down in the dirt and prune away the overgrowth. As Kipling once remarked,  "Gardens are not made by singing, 'Oh how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade."  No matter where you start, late blooming must be treated as an art, an avocation, a kind of sacred calling.

Today's exercise: What portion of your life do you need to prune back because it has overshadowed or overpowered other plants?   What portion do you need to tend like a faithful gardener, without knowing what kind of blossom it may produce?

Check back here to learn more about the magic of late blooming and how best to prepare the ground.