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These words have been in my head for a while, but a helpful conversation today gave me the energy to write them.
For a long while, my life shrank. I stabilized, but my only desire was to go with the flow of life around me.
Now, when I am chanting at night, I pray to expand my life. To me, this means:
There are other things that are naturally expanding, which I am happy to let grow on their own. My faith practice continues to grow a lot, for example, and I don't feel the need to push that harder.
These are the things I want. If they don't happen, it's OK.
The other day, I told my partner that I want my life to shrink as I age. This means that I want my material footprint to grow smaller and smaller, such that my passing is like a candle going out, rather than an old building being left to decay.
This naturally means my desires will move more towards the immaterial; things that don't leave much physical imprint on the Earth.
It means that I want to give away wealth and physical possessions before my time is up, if I have the luxury of that much life.
This is important to me. I do not think it is right for me to take up space as I age. I want to make room for youth to expand their lives in the ways that are important to them.
My faith practice has encouraged me to think a lot more about the specific roles of youth and the elderly in society, and my feelings about these things are getting stronger. But, I'll write about that some other time.