At 70, I no longer see my life primarily through the language of aging, retirement, or diminished productivity. I experience this season instead as a deepening emergence into my own humanity—a quieter, freer becoming that decades of schedules, institutional demands, leadership burdens, and economic necessity had often obscured. In a culture obsessed with speed, youthfulness, innovation, and measurable output, growing old is frequently treated as decline. Yet many ancient societies understood elderhood not as irrelevance but as ripened presence. Elders were valued because they carried memory, discernment, emotional depth, and wisdom shaped by suffering, failure, love, endurance, and long reflection. I hesitate to call myself wise, because life still dismantles my certainties with remarkable consistency. Yet I do recognize within myself a gentle simplification. The noise of performance is fading. The need to impress is loosening. Ego occupies less space. What remains feels closer to essence.
I find myself entering a new season of becoming. Not merely aging. Not merely retiring from salaried work. Rather, I am discovering dimensions of my humanity that decades of structured employment had partially hidden beneath deadlines, organizational responsibilities, institutional expectations, and economic survival.
Recently, I took the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator personality test again. Many years ago, I consistently registered as ENTJ—the archetypal organizer, strategist, executive, mobilizer. This time, however, my result shifted toward INTJ. Some may dismiss such frameworks as simplistic, and psychologists rightly caution against treating personality typologies as absolute science. Research on personality development shows that personality traits can evolve across the lifespan due to aging, environment, social roles, and reflective practices (Roberts et al., 2006). What interested me was not the label itself, but what the transition symbolized in my own inner journey.
My younger self thrived in outward engagement. I was energized by collective struggle, institution-building, public leadership, organizing communities, confronting systems, and mobilizing people toward social transformation. Much of my adult life required extroverted energy. The world of activism, peacebuilding, theology, development work, and organizational leadership demanded visible presence.
But after stepping away from salaried structures, I began noticing another dimension of myself emerging with greater clarity:
- Contemplation
- Silence
- Solitude
- Reflection
- Deep Observation
- Long-Form Writing
- Inner Integration
This shift does not mean I love people less. It means I am learning new ways of loving people more truthfully and sustainably.
Psychologists studying aging increasingly recognize that later adulthood often involves a movement toward meaning-making, wisdom formation, and reflective integration rather than achievement accumulation alone. Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson described late adulthood as the tension between integrity and despair—the search for coherence, peace, and meaning in one’s life story (Erikson, 1982). Likewise, gerontological studies suggest that older adults frequently prioritize emotionally meaningful relationships and reflective experiences over status-driven ambitions (Carstensen et al., 1999).
I see this transition in my own life.
I deeply enjoy my community life at Malipayon Peace Hub. Nestled near the foothills of Mount Apo, and embraced by the Bagobo Tagabawa Tribe through the kindness of the Malik Clan, I experience a rhythm of life that is profoundly different from urban-industrial modernity. The energy here is communal, ecological, spiritual, and grounded.
There are ongoing projects, peacebuilding initiatives, intercultural dialogues, farming activities, shared meals, storytelling, rituals of hospitality, and collective visions for healing communities wounded by poverty, violence, ecological destruction, and historical injustice. Such environments challenge the hyper-individualism of modern capitalist culture. Indigenous worldviews often emphasize relationality: relationship with land, ancestors, community, Creator, and future generations.
Modern ecological science increasingly affirms what many Indigenous communities have long practiced. Studies in environmental psychology show that sustained exposure to nature reduces stress, lowers cortisol levels, improves cognitive restoration, and enhances emotional well-being (Bratman et al., 2019). Likewise, Indigenous ecological knowledge systems are now being recognized globally for their role in biodiversity conservation and sustainable land stewardship (IPBES, 2019).
At Malipayon Peace Hub, I do not merely “visit nature.” I experience being reintroduced into creation.
And yet, equally meaningful to me is solitude.
This surprised me.
There are now days when I find immense joy simply being alone—reading, reflecting, praying, writing, observing trees move with the wind, listening to silence, and allowing memory, grief, gratitude, hope, and imagination to converse within me. I have learned that solitude and loneliness are not the same reality.
Modern neuroscience suggests that reflective solitude can strengthen creativity, emotional regulation, autobiographical integration, and cognitive renewal. Research on contemplative practices also demonstrates positive effects on mental health, attention, empathy, and even neural plasticity (Davidson & McEwen, 2012).
For decades, productivity defined human worth in the industrial economy. One’s value was measured through output, efficiency, titles, salaries, and institutional relevance. Retirement in such systems often produces psychological disorientation because identity was fused with employment.
But I am discovering that human dignity transcends salaried productivity.
I am still alive with purpose.
I remain excited to live—for the welfare of our families; for the development of our communities; for the transformation of our people; for the regeneration of our land; and for the healing of our humanity.
My energy is no longer driven merely by deadlines or institutional obligations. Increasingly, it is animated by vocation, affection, stewardship, wisdom-sharing, intergenerational relationships, and spiritual longing.
One of the greatest joys of this stage of life is being with my grandchildren—onsite in Davao City and online through digital connection. Developmental psychologists often note that grandparenthood can deepen generativity—the desire to nurture future generations and transmit values, stories, memory, and identity (Kotre, 1984). I feel this deeply.
The future becomes personal when you look into the eyes of grandchildren.
You begin asking not only: “What kind of life will they have?” but also: “What kind of world are we leaving behind?”
This question is spiritual, political, economic, and ecological all at once.
Spiritually, I feel less interested in religious performance and more drawn toward inner congruence—becoming aligned with love, truth, justice, mercy, humility, and peace. Socially, I seek fewer superficial interactions and more meaningful relationships. Politically, I remain convinced that societies must confront structural injustice, ecological exploitation, militarism, and systems that sacrifice human dignity for concentrated wealth. Economically, I increasingly value sufficiency over accumulation. Ecologically, I now see more clearly that humanity is not separate from nature but embedded within it.
Aging, when embraced honestly, can become liberation from illusions.
Not liberation from responsibility—but liberation from vanity.
The modern world fears aging because it worships speed, novelty, youthfulness, and economic output. But many ancient traditions viewed elderhood differently. Elders were not discarded because they were less economically productive. They were treasured because they carried memory, perspective, discernment, and wisdom earned through suffering, struggle, love, and endurance.
I do not claim wisdom lightly. Life continues to humble me. But I do sense a gradual simplification happening within me. Less noise. Less performance. Less ego. More essence.
And alongside my excitement for continued life, I also find myself increasingly at peace with mortality. Not morbidly. Not despairingly. But reverently.
The older I become, the more death ceases to appear merely as an interruption and increasingly becomes part of the sacred continuity of existence. Astrophysics reminds us that the atoms composing our bodies were forged in ancient stars. Ecology reminds us that all life participates in cycles of emergence, decay, regeneration, and transformation. Spirituality reminds us that existence is gift.
So I remain excited both to live and, when the Creator wills, to enter the next state of being beyond this physical-material existence.
Until then, I continue aspiring:
- to be a funnel of love,
- to be a rock of truth,
- to be a mountain of peace,
- to be an ocean of abundance,
- to be a fountain of joy,
- and to be a canvas of beauty.
Not perfectly.
But faithfully.
—
References
Bratman, G. N., Anderson, C. B., Berman, M. G., Cochran, B., de Vries, S., Flanders, J., … Daily, G. C. (2019). Nature and mental health: An ecosystem service perspective. Science Advances, 5(7), eaax0903.
Carstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M., & Charles, S. T. (1999). Taking time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. American Psychologist, 54(3), 165–181.
Davidson, R. J., & McEwen, B. S. (2012). Social influences on neuroplasticity: Stress and interventions to promote well-being. Nature Neuroscience, 15(5), 689–695.
Erikson, E. H. (1982). The life cycle completed. W. W. Norton.
IPBES. (2019). Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Kotre, J. (1984). Outliving the self: Generativity and the interpretation of lives. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1), 1–25.
