Ya, that’s a little awkward. The ‘see’ and not the ‘sea.’ 

  For I am referring to the perception of something, in this case age. 

  We immediately recognize the signs of advancing age. In short, it is the apprehension of a more or less wilting of the once vigorous man or woman plant. 

  Few, like the Gautama, can be entirely protected from this potentially shattering realization of our own inevitable mortality. 

  Wishing to shield his princely son the harsh realities of Life, the Buddha’s kingly father decreed that no one but the youthful and comely could attend upon his son in a prison-like palace devoted to pleasure and luxurious ease. Well on a succession of days the prince escaped and the gods saw to it that he was properly introduced to the realities of Life in a sick, an elderly, and a dead person. 

  That traumatic experience as told by the legend fabulators was Life changing for the Buddha and for billions of souls across the planet ever since. 

  All Life is suffering, taught the Buddha. 

  Sure, I suppose, but all Life is also joy and wonder too I’d amend. 

  The choice is our’s. 

  Anyway. There’s no arguing that we’re all heading time-wise in the same direction. 

  However, are we as quick to perceive the evident signs of age in human groupings that have been forged in one way or another into organic beings? Can we easily recognize tokens of senility in once formidable sport teams, the ‘going through the motions’ in once richly creative rock bands, or the resting on their laurels of once highly profitable business corporations? I would say with plenty of examples in each field available it wouldn’t be too hard for any of us to come up with a few names.

  But what about the largest conceivable human groupings, civilizations? Here the time spans are immense, upwards of a thousand years. Who studies history sufficiently to discern clear signs of aging here? And are there enough examples to distinguish the underlying pattern from the mass of detail? 

  And added to that is our own place and belonging within one of these organic civilizational entities.

If we are individual cells in this greater civilizational living being, is it as a whole, as a body, showing clear signs of youthful energy or decrepit age? 

  Aummmmmm…….