Stay Young

The Stay Young Book

The pitchfork

Desire is like a hole in a bucket
And all the waters of all the oceans
Cannot fill a bucket with a hole in it…
  - old Chinese proverb

The gulf of yearning, body heart, mind, & spirit,
Into which the soul empties itself.
                     - unknown

In order to stop the aging process, one of the first steps is to learn how to recognize those dying moments. If you can recognize those moments when they happen you can pause, see them for what they are, and refuse to add them to your collection. When you really learn what you are doing you can learn to stand those moments on their heads and grow slightly younger each time.

There are two types of moments that age us critically: net moments and pitchfork moments. Because pitchfork moments happen to us more often, we will discuss those first.

Imagine a traditional picture of the devil? He is wearing red, has horns and a tail, and he carries a pitchfork1. It looks like a big metal fork with three points. Remembering this image will make it easier to look for these moments when they happen.

There are three primary motivations that occur in a pitchfork moment. All of them have the same basic effects. All of them can be handled with these same steps. For this reason, the pitchfork is a useful image. The three prongs can remind you of those three basic motivators. When one of these three affects you, picture a guy with horns and a pitchfork standing beside you and prodding you.

What are these three dangerous motivators? They are “desire,” “fear,” and “duty.” All pitchfork moments come from one of these three. And every one of them ages you.

When I explained this to a friend, she objected. “Wait a minute!” she said. “Desire is not bad. If I want to go walk in the park and I do, that feels great. How can that be a pitchfork moment?” Good question.

Wanting something and enjoying something are very different. The difference between loving someone who is unavailable and wanting them is the difference between friendship and obsession. The difference between enjoying a smoke or a drink and craving it is addiction. The difference between enjoying a walk in the park and wanting to walk in the park is immense. One of them puts you in the moment and brings you joy. The other puts your attention in some other moment, takes you out of this one, and brings you stress because you are not there. Wanting things is always unhealthy.

“Hang on a minute!” I hear you say. “I want to stop getting older. That’s why I’m reading this book in the first place.” Great! You would like to stop getting older. That makes sense. We need to be very careful here, however.

You can decide to visit Hawaii. (If you already live in Hawaii, you can come visit Wisconsin.) You can arrange a flight or a boat ticket, pack your luggage, get to the airport, and so on. Without those steps you will probably never make it there.

Another approach you can take is to decide that you “want” to be in Hawaii (or be rich, or famous, or happy, or thin, or young…). You can sit at your desk at work and talk about Hawaii. You can look at travel brochures and old Elvis movies. You can put a lot of time and effort into wanting to be there without ever getting closer. Doing so keeps you from experiencing whatever you are doing now. It takes your attention outside of yourself and puts it somewhere else. This separation is dangerous. It ages you. Every moment that you spend this way is a pitchfork moment.

The difference between these two approaches is not action. It is attitude. It makes no difference whether you make plans to get to Hawaii or even whether you make it there. It is the wanting that hurts you. In the first case you decided to make the trip. You planned for it, but continued to live your life. In the second, you still did your daily things, but your heart was in Hawaii. Whenever your heart—you can also call it your attention—is somewhere besides right here, that is desire. That is a pitchfork moment. That ages you.

By all means, plan for the future. Have dreams if they make you happy. Take steps toward making them true or just daydream about them. It’s all ok. When you plan, however, be fully involved in your planning. When you daydream, truly daydream. Shut everything else off and be involved in that daydream moment. Go with it! Avoid putting your attention someplace where you are not. Every time you put your attention or your heart somewhere outside yourself, you are blocking out life. That is a pitchfork moment.

You can spend so much time and effort on possible futures (or on things in the past), that you do not have much of yourself left over to live in the moment.

Becoming aware of this tendency is one of the biggest changes you can make in your life to stop aging. Stop Wanting. Every time you find yourself living in the future or the past, stop. Recognize it as a pitchfork moment and come back to the present.

Having dreams is not unhealthy. Loving someone is not bad. Even wanting is not “bad.” It is just dangerous. It ages you. You can, with enough practice learn to want in a healthy way. For now though, think of wanting as a drug. Let’s kick the habit.

If you or someone you know has ever tried to quit smoking, you will have some idea how difficult it can be. You see, quitting is not something you get to do once. If you quit smoking, the desire for a smoke will come up many times that first day. In your mind you will reach for the smoke and… At that point you have to quit all over again. The practice of watching your thoughts and of stopping yourself every time you reach for a smoke has to become a habit.

It is the same with desire, with wanting. If you are like most people, you are so accustomed to wanting things and to reaching out to that desire every time that you have become addicted. Like any addict you might argue, “It’s not bad for me!” or “I’m in control.” If you are like most, however, you are not in control. Try to stop wanting something. If it is difficult to see in yourself, watch someone else. Watch a child who wants something.  Imagine them trying to stop wanting. They are not in control. Probably, neither are you. And wanting is in fact bad for you. It ages you.

Fear2 is very similar to desire in its effects. When you feel afraid, you step outside yourself. You take your attention—your heart—out of the present moment and put it somewhere else. Doing so is unconscious. You may have thought about it as a child. Now you do it so quickly may not even realize it is happening. It is happening, however, and it is dangerous. Every single time we feel fear it has the potential to age us.

The third point on the pitchfork is duty. When you do something because you have to, that is duty. When you stop yourself from doing something because you “shouldn’t” do it or “should” do something else, that is duty. Duty is a big part of most lives. Anyone with a job, a family, or any other responsibilities deals with duty. Like desire and fear it seems mostly harmless. It is not however. Like desire and fear, each time it ages you.

The three points of the pitchfork—desire, fear, and duty—are almost constant parts of most lives. They seem mostly harmless. The idea that they are dangerous may seem like a strange one. That is okay. The idea that you can stop aging is a strange one. It should be no surprise that the process will introduce you to some other strange new ideas.

There is no need to “believe” these things about the points of the pitchfork. Our purpose is scientific, not religious or metaphysical. Find out for yourself. Read on. There are a series of steps that you can try. I encourage you to try them. In doing so you will come to understand pitchfork moments and the power they have.

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