My birthday is around the corner, and I have been waiting to turn 50 for last 3 years. And somehow end up miscalculating. My son keeps correcting my calculations.
Age is just a number, is not TRUE.
‘So how old are you’, a friend asked yesterday. Somehow people hesitate to ask this question. Understandbly.
I paused , to get the “right” calculations. But in the pause, the question …deepened in my mind and entered my body.
How old AM I ? How OLD am I ?
This could also be the effect of “Systems thinking” that I have been trying to simplify for a client intervention.
And so I ended up thinking about the question, from this lens.
From my journey of rebellion for Independence to the understanding of systems and therefore Interdependence was the One thing that popped in my mind quickly. I can smile at my insistence then, and how appropriate it was at one stage. And sigh gratefully that I have outgrow that notion. Most days.
So, preamble..
What is Systems Theory?
Systems Theory is concerned with ideas that describe common characteristics of complex systems in Nature and the Universe. The idea of interdependence is the understanding that all systems are composed of many parts that are connected together and are related.
For example, our body, is a system. Digestive, muscular, respiratory, immune, etc., that work together interdependently, as a unified whole. Most times at least. Sometimes after a difficult yoga session, I am surprised to feel some parts I did not even know I had.
Similarly, there are many kinds of Systems in our Universe that are connected together, interdependently, and make new things.
Every Thing or Person is a system, which when you touch and see, has a connection with both the past and present – Simultaneously.
Our body to take the same example, has an evolutionary heritage, that goes back billions of years, with the history of life on our planet. There is also a cultural history, to it and how literally the environment has “shaped” us. The clothes we wear, the food we eat. Etc. Everything has a unique history that stretches back through time and space.
There is a friend who studies the History of Design of Children’s clothes. Some really interesting stories, for another time.
We are also connected to the history of the Universe. Most of the atoms in our body are billions of years old, many created in stars which existed before our solar system was born. Moreover, the energy that spins as those atoms has a history going back further to the Big Bang, when our Universe began. While our body maybe relatively new or young, our atoms are ancient.
And so, I may be very very old.
I came back to the present moment. It was a good question to ponder.
It certainly made me feel very Grateful to the seen and unseen web all around me. Our relationships with systems go back through time to the past, and outward in the present, connecting us with the whole planet.
Perhaps one of the keys to feel deeply belonged is to “See” this picture. We ALWAYS belong.
We learnt, unbelonging, perhaps through the trauma of divides.
Perhaps we need to PAUSE, every now and then to listen to some innocuous questions.
Maybe its time to ask, how old Am i?
