A Smart Dad
When my sons were young
I taught them how to drive a forklift and drive cars
I taught them how to treat people
How to be on their own
I tried to do the best I could
After they got out on their own
About 10 years later on my birthday
My youngest son called me to wish me “Happy Birthday”
We talked for a while
As we were saying goodbye
He said, Dad, the older I get the smarter you get
A couple of days later my older son called to wish me “Happy
Birthday”
We talked for a long time
Then he said
Dad, the older I get the smarter you get
That meant so much to me
That was the best birthday gift I had in my life
"Philosopher in Meditation" -- Rembrandt
"Philosopher in Meditation" -- Rembrandt
Senex (Latin for old man) was a title bestowed on elderly men with families who had good standing in their village. In literary terms a senex was typically represented as a wise father figure who uses personal knowledge of people and the world to offer guidance that impresses upon his audience a sense of who they are and who they might become. He is disciplined, controlled, responsible, rational, ordered. For Carl Gustav Jung it was an archetype, one of the "primordial, structural elements of the human psyche" (which I see as the psychological analog to the biological concept of instinct). It is late to arrive in the individuation process, perhaps in middle age. To him, the anima and animus are the two primary archetypes of the collective unconscious (a domain that transcends the personal psyche), the feminine psychological qualities in a woman and the masculine ones of a woman. In her commentary to Jung's "Man and his Symbols," Marie Louise von Franz wrote, "If an individual has wrestled seriously enough and long enough with the anima (or animus) problem ... the unconscious again changes its dominant character and appears in a new symbolic form ... as a masculine initiator and guardian (an Indian guru), a wise old man, a spirit of nature, and so forth." In theological terms, Jack A. Graham wrote, "We have not been taught to recognize these figures and what they offer to us, but there are many hundreds of these figures in our actual history. There are a number of these Self-realized figures walking among us, but they generally keep this secret(they have no ego).... The Elder is someone who knows something about this kind of attainment. The Elder understands the journey into Self-realization, but may still be far from such realization personally. The Elder understands the nature of the outer journey of individuating from family and culture, the outer experience with the collective conscious, the play of personas and other adaptations and plays of ego, and the illusions of power and fame and success. The elder has come to understand how the first half of life has been to create a spiritual, psychological and embodied container to work with the real questions as well as the pain of the losses and the emptying out in the dissolution of the lesser self that obscures the true Self. The Elder begins to see the 'frames' of finite imagination and psyche around all of our stories. The Elder has 'raised the child,' both inner and outer .... The Elder understands that 'dying ten thousand deaths before you die' is the way to becoming what lives forever. The Elder understands that such emptying of psychic content is not a metaphysical principle, not an active stance, not a psychological project, but it becomes the art of allowing life to move through one. The Elder experiences increasing acceptance and equanimity around whatever happens, knowing it all is the Way to Self. The Elder becomes adept in embracing and letting go. As such, others around the Elder feel her/his strength, his/her vital aliveness beyond aging, and his/her lack of attachment, they too feel the presence of that which is Higher."
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