The beauty of youth and flowers are guests for only a few days.
Like the leaves of the water-lily,
they wither and fade and finally die.
Be happy, dear beloved,
as long as your youth is fresh and delightful.
But your days are few—
you have grown weary, and now your body has grown old.
—Siri Guru Granth - Ang 23
When I lived in California, I met this guy who preached a philosophy of “preserving the youth.” When I asked what he meant, he told me to meet him at a nearby park the next day.
In the parking lot, he handed me a small and brightly colored net before marching up a flight of stairs holding a jar. I didn’t even ask what it was for, just followed him halfway up until something caught his eye.
“Stand right there,” he said, hovering over a tightly-knit shrub next to the stairs. I stood stair-side of him, staring questioningly, when all of a sudden, he began shaking the back side of the shrub. Right then, a small lizard shot out across the stairs past my feet as he yelled, “Get him!”
Too little, too late, I swiped the net at the scampering reptile, and it was gone into a bush on the other side. “You’re gonna have to be quicker than that,” said Lizard Man, marching up the stairs.
Again, something caught his eye, and he lined up outside another bush.
Shake, shake, shake.
Pyooom!
Swat.
Miss.
I couldn’t help but laugh at my own second failure.
“Come on,” said Lizard Man, “you’re makin’ us look bad!”
“Alright, alright,” I laughed. “I’ve got the next one.”
And I did. And another, and another, before we ran out of stair bushes to shake.
From there, we took our bounty back to his house, where we ate them.
(Just kidding. We didn’t eat park lizards.)
…where we put them in a tank and caught some bugs for them to eat, ordering a pizza for ourselves as we watched.
After an hour, we let them go, watching them scurry off to new bushes some insurmountable distance away for a lizard to ever get home. Hopefully they didn’t have families.
Anyway, the experience was such a simple way to tap into that long-lost inner child who gets too neglected in the face of adulthood. And, honestly, just a refreshing way to spend an afternoon.
So I ask you, dear reader: What are you doing to preserve the youth today?