Age and Listen

I change the title: Ive dreamt of doing this before.

I age. I listen.

I thought vocal was something of a conversation- where you could hear my words and not read them. Maybe it's a blog, yes now it feels that way.

I didn't expect to be blogging tonight.

Isn't it interesting how sometimes we look for those expectations and permissions to express? When all anyone really needs in life is a platform. The platform is the permission. Forget grammar, intelligence, puns, as long as theres depth to someone's expression—I'll want to listen.

Im 32, last time I kept an online journal (which is exactly what this feels like) I wrote in it endlessly with no inhibitions, which was natural for me as a black sheep, introverted, creatively unidentifiable teenager craving to be free. We all go through that and right now Im watching young people go through it... cringing... knowing, what that takes.

Faceapp may change the whole game—once I saw myself as a 70 year old still smiling, wrapped around someone I love dearly, working on my computer in an oversized black and white sweater- I realized my perspective changed. Permanence felt more actual and contemplating the frame of mind I'll have as a 70 year old woman had me questioning—who do I want to be then? What do I want to feel then? Does time have so much power over us that just catching a glimpse of another time of life—can alter the course of who we become?

Suffice it to say, as a visual person it had an effect on me. Age is beautifully becoming from the inside and seeing life through a wrinkled lens of more.

Contemplation

When do we start to consider that we are aging? When we remember we've learned a few more things about ourselves? Is it when we realize we wouldn't make decisions the same way, when we alter our motivations, or see we've had on the blinders of youth? Or is it when we acknowledge that this process of life happens in increments, each bringing us closer to ourselves—allowing us to connect more intimately with the world?

FaceApp is ultimately—extremely encouraging, to me at least. Appearances aside... I think it causes us to consider what will that old self know, love, and be? How do we get there?