The day comes when we look around and realize the world has passed us by. Our sensibilities and worldview are not those of the younger people around us. Our attitudes and outlooks are relics of a bygone era. So much of the world we suddenly no longer understand.

How did we get here?

Simple. Our desire, our will to explore our world, to learn new things, falls into as much of a death spiral as our bodies. Only so much one can do with creaky joints, but we’ve the power to do something about our creaky minds.

We must choose to become The Seeker again: that young person we once were, for whom curiosity and the desire to learn was as natural and commonplace as breathing. Diving back into the waters of knowledge at this point may be a frigid shock to the system, but we can do it.

How?

Choose to learn again. Become The Seeker once more. Whatever you least enjoy about this life, whatever you least understand, seize it and make it your own.

Can’t stand reggae music? Loop a music stream of Shabba Ranks for the next 30 hours. Just listen to him.

Can’t stand country western? Go back to its roots. Listen to the social commentary embedded in the songs of Woody Guthrie, whose legacy Joan Baez carried forward. Slide over to Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. Fast-forward to Garth Brooks. Slide sideways to Big & Rich.

Perhaps you love those but cannot stand or appreciate classical music. Reach into the trove of the great artists of their day. Invest countless hours listening to arrangements of their compositions.

Perhaps all you read are cozy mystery stories. Pull out a horror story, or something considered modern literary writing, or perhaps the entire library of Louis L’Amour.

Becoming The Seeker requires immersion in what you decided long ago you do not like or appreciate, in what you have long since abandoned as the young person’s domain.

Choose to learn again. Not at all comfortable at first, this learning, as it’s very much like physical exercise. Exercise, counterintuitively, damages our muscles. Our bodies ready themselves for the next onslaught of physical exertion by building back better, becoming stronger. It’s the same with choosing to learn again. Hard at first, but the more often we choose to learn, the easier the choosing becomes.

Choose to be The Seeker. Choose learning. Discover again. Awaken your creaky mind, and you won’t feel so lost.