As a writer, it’s useful to know that the half-life of caffeine is around six hours and as an (ex)advertising copywriter I was alarmed to learn that the half-life of many digital marketing campaigns is now measured in hours or even minutes, not in days or weeks as was the case back in my day, (when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the web was something you attacked with a broom).
Facts have half-lives too, measured by the time it takes for half a fact to be replaced or disproved – and the speed at which that is happening has gained significant momentum over the last few decades. Every day we are bombarded by an uncurated buffet of fast facts, of which we consume a small portion, digest even less and then discard the remainder into the ‘fact landfill’. Since I last sat in a science class, we’ve gained an ocean and a continent and lost a planet. The food pyramid has lost all its health street cred, and as it turns out, Dire Straits many have been getting their “money for nothing” … but their “chips” were most definitely not free.
Of course, the speed at which old facts are dispelled and new ones are unearthed has significant upsides too, but where it gets interesting is how we make sense of the layering, removal and replacement of facts in our brains. Like a giant game of cognitive Jenga… overlayed with the delicate balancing act required to ensure that the whole tower doesn’t collapse when one tightly held fact is removed from the bottom.
Perhaps the mental dexterity required to avoid the tower from toppling comes from the understanding that knowledge is about so much more than just facts. It’s about deep knowing… and wisdom. The gradual layering of information over time, across the course of our lives, that is distilled to make meaning. Which leads me in a roundabout way, back to where I started. If facts have half lives, how long does it take for half of what we believe to be true about ourselves, to be disproved or replaced? Does life (and the backpack of beliefs that we carry around about ourselves) have a half-life too?
For me, this ‘half-life of life’, intersected with life’s halftime hooter. Actually, it was less of an intersection and more of a head on collision. Intersection implies that both parties abided by the give way protocol and politely passed one another without incident. Nope. This was more of a hit and run situation. Midlife came careening through that intersection at 100 mph and ran me down without slowing down or looking back to check if I was ok. In one fell swoop, half of what I thought to be true about myself was turned into midlife roadkill and the jaws of life were required to delicately extract and salvage what was left of me from the rubble of the truths that remained.
Rehabilitation has been long and slow, but along the way I’ve learnt some valuable lessons. One of which was that my foundations (revealed after extensive personal excavation) were actually pretty sound. It’s just that over the years, I’d allowed a few too many architects to make ad hoc ‘extensions’… most of which weren’t in keeping with my original architectural style (and were made without planning approval). Another was the power of community and the foundational friendships that became home to my heart when it felt homeless. It’s this ‘circle of sages’ from whom I will seek trusted design advice moving forwards. But ultimately I now wear the hat of architect and project manager in charge.
The vision that’s guiding my personal renovation embodies a design ethos that’s soulful, curious, creative and adventurous with a more meandering footprint with room for expansion (in all ways … including girth!) It’s less ‘blueprint’ and more ‘blue sky’.. with space to incorporate all the beautiful unknowns that lie ahead. However it unfolds, it’s on me to design something more wonderful than I might ever have dared to imagine. A home for all my accumulated wisdom and wonder(filled) new personal learnings, that will evolve as I do and whose half-life I’ll embrace… less ‘hit and run’ and more ‘loved and won’.
-Ang
Ang Galloway is an Australian storyteller and MEA alum. You can read more of her stories at https://angelagalloway.substack.com/. Ang is profiled in Chip’s Introductory chapter of “Learning to Love Midlife” which releases on January 16.