Occupation

With what does man occupy himself? Let us admit it: with a great deal of foolishness. He tries to kill time, and then, in the end, time kills him. We seek pleasures within the reach of any living being. Many long for recognition, for esteem, or indeed for wealth, which in truth is not a goal at all, but rather a means. These occupations amount to manipulating the energies available in life: how much can man set in motion, how much can he attain? Contemplation is a higher goal than this, a quiet occupation, but it brings weighty lessons.

The researcher Norman S. Rose classified the stages of human life according to the Fibonacci sequence. The distinctive feature of this sequence is that its first term is zero, its second is one, and each further term is the sum of the two numbers before it: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…

The Fibonacci sequence also defines an exponentially widening spiral, as if man's activity, too, moved along an ever-widening orbit. Hopefully this life-path spiral will not scatter us centrifugally, but will perhaps launch us onto the endless orbit of eternal existence.

Alongside this mathematical law, mirrored both in nature and in the life of man, many link the mystery of conception and birth to the symbolic influence of the Moon. In any case, the lunar influence reappears countless times in nature. The Moon is a wonderful symbol of the mystery of light and, in its waning and waxing, a natural, easily followed marker of time. Indian philosophy employs a beautiful image: the Moon waxes as the souls that depart to it multiply, and wanes as the souls reborn from there back to Earth leave it in multitudes. The Moon creates brightness in the dark night, and almost unites within itself the two qualities of light and shadow: born in darkness, it brings light. And if human life is conceived under the sign of the Moon, then mystery, a mysterious calling, must remain its hallmark for the whole length of that life. That is why the Moon reappears in the fertility cycle of women – and, let us add, in the activity cycle of men. The daily cycle, too, is not merely an alternation of the phases of waking and sleeping, of work and rest, but, like a fractal in time, it embraces the whole span of a life – each day we are born and we die. The ceasing or reordering of the fertility cycle is a natural sign that it is time to turn attention from the transient towards the lasting. This warning in time sets the proportions: it shows what share of our time and energy we should devote to fulfilling our biological or our spiritual calling.

If we reduce the number of life cycles, we arrive at four stages: learning, founding a family, withdrawal, and preparation for moving on, or for eternal life. Especially worthy of note is the fourth life cycle, which passes under the sign of preparation for the world beyond and offers a real solution to most of the worries and problems that arise in the twilight of life.