An honest companionship in uncertainty

When one grows old, age assumes a different meaning. Bertrand Russell writes, “An individual human existence should be like a river—small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.”

In the early years, our concerns are largely ego-bound. We care more about success, recognition, and survival. Like a young river, life is noisy and tightly constrained by its banks. Identity, role, and ambition are governed by a fragile ego, always alert, always defensive.

As we grow, a subtle shift occurs. One begins to care without clinging to personal stakes. The self becomes momentarily absent. One listens more than asserts, observes more than intervenes. The self matters less, and meaning is no longer measured solely by gain or loss. The centre of gravity of give and take shifts; from ego to attention, from outcome to orientation.

All these years, many kinds of people came to me, each in search of something they believed I could give. They were looking for assurances I was never confident of possessing. In hindsight, they did not come for what I could have given; they came for what they hoped I would give.

Eventually, I could no longer offer that kind of assurance.

Hope that depends on borrowed certainty exhausts both at the giver's and the seeker's end. When I stopped supplying it, they stopped coming.

But when one door closes, another opens. A different set of people now come, asking for another kind of hope; one that does not promise outcomes, only orientation; not reassurance, but the courage to remain with uncertainty. This hope listens. It reflects.

This is a hope I can give without pretension. I feel aligned with it, comfortable within it. Perhaps this was always the purpose of my being here, to give not what is expected, but honest companionship in uncertainty.