Water lillies (Photo credit: AtomDocs)
Poet Toyo Shibata started writing at the age of 92. Her first anthology sold almost 1.6 million copies. Last Sunday, she passed away peacefully and without pain. She was 101 years old.
Did the passion for poetry help her live a long life?
We cannot say for sure. What we can say, however, is that the passion for poetry must have been a way of staying happy and keeping her mind active, exemplifying one of the rules of living a longer and happier life.
EXAMINE LIFE, ENGAGE LIFE WITH VENGEANCE; ALWAYS SEARCH FOR NEW PLEASURES AND NEW DESTINIES TO REACH WITH YOUR MIND.
This rule isn’t new. It echoes the verses of ancient Greek philosophers and most notably those of Plato through the voice of his hero Socrates. Living life is about examining life through reason; nature’s greatest gift to humanity. The importance of reason in sensing and examining life is evident in all phases of life; from the infant who strains to explore its new surroundings to the grandparent who actively reads and assesses the headlines of the daily paper. Reason lets human beings participate in life, to be human is to think, appraise, and explore the world, discovering new sources of material and spiritual pleasure.
Some people fully understand the significance of reason in examining and participating in life. They espouse new ideas, long for new things, new relationships, constantly discovering new interests, escaping from their boring routines. They engage life with enthusiasm; grasping life aggressively and squeezing from it every drop of excitement, satisfaction, and joy. Some discover new professional challenges, build new bridges, new skyscrapers; develop new medicines, and new computer gear. Others discover new hobbies, scaling mountaintops, exploring the sea bottom, and the depths of the jungle. A third group addresses the ills of humanity, the sick, the poor and the disadvantaged, and amasses funds, food and medicine to comfort and cure them.
A properly examined life protects people against living a life as spectators. It bestows the opportunities that accompany every sunrise and it does so even for those who are no longer in their youth. People, who continue to explore life fully, even though they may be advanced in years, can still discover that something new awaits them everyday regardless of age–a new place to travel, a new book to read, and new people to meet. The key to unleashing the potential of reason is attitude. The person who approaches life with a child-like wonder is best prepared to defy the limitations of time, is more “alive,” more of a participant in life at the age of sixty or even seventy than the average teenager.
Unfortunately, not everyone fully understands the significance and potentialities of reason. Some people fail to cultivate and utilize it to its fullest extend, and fail therefore to participate in a fully human existence.
Life is full of potential but too often people settle for a series of stale routines, allowing themselves to become content with the dull and ordinary activities that have guided their lives for years. They abandon the sense of adventure that once colored their lives and instead accept one compromise after another, staying on the sidelines of life, isolating and alienating themselves from friends and relatives—
They no longer examine life!
*This is an extract from the Ten Golden Rules I did co-authored with Michael Soupios, published by HAMPTON ROADS.
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