How Old Do You Have To Be To Start Living?

I am 56.

Among the many things I was afraid of as a young man was that I would die young. I was so afraid of it that I thought it was inevitable. I lived my life as if death was just around the corner.

As a writer and composer, I had lots of role models who died young. Schubert, Mozart, Keats. Perhaps that’s why I became so obsessed with the biographies of creative people. I was trying to understand how to create in an uncertain, scary life.

Each time I passed the age of one of these figures who died young, I called the year by that name. At 31 I survived my “Schubert Year.” At 36, my “Mozart Year.”

This obsession had one benefit: It kept me creating prolifically to stay ahead of my death sentence. I had to get as much out as possible, and to work tirelessly to make sure it represented me and my ideals.

I ended up writing so much that eventually I got to the point where I felt like death would not stamp out my existence anymore, that I’d written enough to represent myself. My anxiety of early death began to dissipate. And while I still don’t want to die, at this point I’m at peace with the idea.

So it was with some shock that I Googled “When did Mahler Die” only to find out that he was 50.

This profound, experienced composer and orchestrator that I’ve looked up to for decades was significantly younger than I am now when he passed. Then I checked on Beethoven.

He died at 56.

Here I am, older than Beethoven and Mahler ever got.

You might be wondering what the effect of this news is on me. Truth to tell, I was surprised at my own reaction. I began to recognize that I am now in a part of life that most of my heroes never experienced.

I can’t use their lives as a guide anymore. I’m on my own.

So where are you on your journey? Are you afraid of dying, or afraid of living? Who are your role models and how do they give you a sense of where you’re going?

When I was 20 I had a vista of decades in front of me that I wanted to populate, and even if I was afraid I wouldn’t get there, I could still see it! Now I’m standing where I used to gaze and I’m not sure where to look next.

Yesterday I found myself thinking about the music of Warren Zevon again. I’ve never found him particularly compelling, but for some reason I wanted to check him out. In reviewing his life, I see that he was an alcoholic and that the disease made so much of his time as a brilliant musician and songwriter a chaotic horrible mess.

Zevon died young, I remembered. So I googled his age at the time of death.

He was 56.