Last night, my sister, a friend, and I went to Oktoberfest. It was wild.
Yesterday was the first day I actually reached my 15,000-step goal since coming on this trip, and I did it all through dancing and cavorting with the locals.
Beer, and copious amounts of it, certainly greased the wheels that got my dancing feet hopping.
Today, I am feeling fine, but am sort of amazed at how much energy and zest I was able to bring out for the celebration.
The dance floor was filled with people much younger than myself.
Nevertheless, I was as animated and agile as most of them. That is fun.
It is great to be able to not only feel younger, perhaps look younger, but also move like I am younger than my age.
What a gift, and I am grateful for it.
That said, when we left last night, my sister and I were plotting our return to the party today or tomorrow.
This morning, after not the best or longest night of sleep, I am only interested in chilling and relaxing again.
Our friend was trying to keep a governor on our partying, although for most of the night she was a good sport and joined in on the insane debauchery that is the chicken dance.
However, she was not as comfortable letting loose and wanted to leave earlier for some reason.
To me, it seems she was trying to act her age.
The other night, my sister played a video from Amy Poehler’s podcast, A Good Hang. She was interviewing Paul McCartney.
I am pretty sure it was Paul who said that he believes most people are fully grown at 25 years old, and then never really leave that age.
He said he still thinks and feels like he is 25, at least on the inside.
He is 84 years old, and besides showing more of his gray hair, is showing no signs of slowing down.
I found this intriguing.
I do not feel like I am 25 now, but definitely not much different than I did when I was in my 30s. Perhaps when I get to be Paul’s age, I will regress.
What I do think is that there are different versions of ourselves we can access.
That is what personal mythology has shown me.
I can be younger, older, wiser, or more clown-like at any given point in time.
Last night, I was definitely accessing more of my early-20’s self than I typically display in public.
And to me, that is what makes something like a festival, a party, a vacation, a concert, or another type of memorable event so magical.
These types of events allow us to tap into our inner child and let loose.
How many of these are too many? I am not so sure.
Once per week? Once per month? Probably along those lines.
As fun as it was, it is not a healthy way to live if you are consuming a lot of alcohol and then letting go of your intended eating plans.
We had a decent meal at the festival, so there was no overeating involved, but the drinks were flowing like a river.
And I have been cutting back on my daily alcohol consumption this year.
I had zero drinks in August and September.
It was never my goal to quit drinking entirely, but to save it up for special occasions.
Last night, I cashed in a lot of my imaginary drink tickets, and it was absolutely in the spirit of what I have intended.
Perhaps that is a sign of acting one’s age?
There is a concept I have heard of related to this question of acting one’s age, but I have little knowledge of it.
The first person I heard use the term was James Hillman.
He delivered a lecture toward the end of his life, last decade, on the topic of the Puer. The Puer is a male archetype, and there is a female equivalent called the Puella.
Evidently, it is an idea from analytical psychology involving a child-god who is eternally young.
Peter Pan is a popular folk-tale version of this figure.
It is also used to describe the “failure to launch” syndrome.
A person with this complex lives as if their real life has not started yet.
They view rules, limits, and long-term commitments as serious restrictions on their freedom.
They have high potential that never translates into finished projects because they struggle so much with mundane and grinding tasks.
Sign me up for this complex.
I can definitely relate to these ideas and am living out of, or from within, this framework a great deal in my post-FIRE lifestyle.
Is it a real problem, though?
No, it is not for me.
I may not like limitations and the imperfections of life, but I am able to accept them.
I’ve done the hard work to embrace this side of my personality more fully now.
The Highway To Yeah is Partly about moving from the shadow side of the Senex (the old, rigid, and overly disciplined polar opposite archetype of the foolish Puer) and back to this way of living more freely.
Acting my age today means I am acting as I want, when I want, and where I want.
Discipline and routine help.
And letting those go a bit is good for the soul.
And that is where I will leave today’s article.