The last stage of one’s life is that in which we sift through the events of our lives and try to tell ourselves a coherent story of our lives in order to extract meaning.
All my reading life I have preferred mystery stories, starting with Nancy Drew all the way through Perry Mason up to and including Law and Order. Mystery is differs from Suspense (which makes me extremely anxious) but contains the element of suspense ameliorated by the existence of clues. As long as there are clues there is the option of anticipating the end of the story through your own mental efforts and understanding. The more clues we can pick up on, the less suspenseful the mystery. Even if you get it wrong in the end, you can recall the clues that you missed first time through and feel that the mystery is satisfactorily solved.
So it is in advancing age: we go back through our story to find clues about the final outcome. And like a good mystery story, we find out at the end what has been staring us in the face all along. Life is the process, not the outcome.
Tags: coherent story, mental efforts, mystery story, perry mason, reading life, story of our lives
