Apparently, the whole world is talking about Mick Jagger. At least, my world is.
My social media feed brings me The Rolling Stones, art, dance, writing, style—and lately, fabulous women in their eighties dancing with passion, flexibility, stamina, and seriously good moves.
Gary’s world, meanwhile, is talking about politics, business, real estate, boxing, architecture, and big cats. We can sit beside each other on the same planet and receive entirely different versions of what everyone is talking about.
Of course, we helped create them. What we feed with our attention teaches an algorithm what to give us next.
But this didn’t begin with algorithms. Decades ago, anyone looking at the piles of books and magazines beside Gary’s chair and mine could have predicted a great deal about each of us.
What we feed on feeds us.
What We Feed, What We Nourish
But our deepest territory isn’t what we consume.
It’s what we nourish.
In my sixties, I still dance wildly—rock ’n’ roll, salsa, whatever moves me—often alone on our terrace. So when those magnificent eighty-something women appear in my feed, I watch with delight. They look their age and dance with abandon.
So does Mick Jagger. He looks his age. Then the music begins.
He doesn’t move like a younger man.
He moves like Jagger.
That’s what thrills me: seeing someone remain unmistakably themselves at every age.
My beloved Nana showed me another version. She danced until she was ninety—not my wild kind of dancing, but partnered ballroom dancing, entirely her own. In her sixties, she also picked up a paintbrush and became a wonderful painter.
She didn’t just keep something alive. She discovered something else that made her come alive.
I picked up my first paintbrush in my sixties, too. There is willingness in beginning something new and staying curious about what else may awaken.
Fully Ourselves
Aliveness has no prescribed form.
Gary doesn’t dance. Give him an interesting business proposition, remarkable architecture, real estate, or something happening in the world he wants to understand, and watch him light up.
His version looks like Gary. Mine looks like me.
Nor can we measure how fully someone inhabits a life by movement, accomplishment, or productivity. Stillness can be intensely alive. The form cannot tell us.
But somewhere inside ourselves, I think we know.
Those fabulous dancers make me smile because I recognize something in them. I loved seeing it in Nana. I see it in Gary. And when Mick starts moving, well, I may be particularly devoted to the research.
They aren’t the reason I participate in my life. They remind me how many ways there are to be fully here—and how much delight there is in witnessing someone else doing the same.
An algorithm can learn what captures my attention. It can keep feeding me more.
But it cannot live what I love for me.
That part belongs to me.
I cannot know how I will move at eighty, or what might capture my curiosity next.
What we feed on feeds us. What we nourish grows more alive.
And so do we.