What I Realized After Turning 50: I Can See My Limits, So I Might as Well Take Life Easy

Until my thirties, I believed I still had plenty of potential.

I could grow more. I could rise higher. Even if I could not do something then, I would eventually learn how.

There was no particular basis for this belief, but for some reason I held it.

In my forties, things began to look a little less certain.

Now that I am past 50, I have finally begun to understand.

Ah, this is roughly the kind of person I am.

I can see almost everything I am capable of and incapable of doing. It seems unlikely that some extraordinary talent will suddenly blossom from here and transform my life dramatically.

When I was younger, I might have found that a little disappointing, but it no longer bothers me very much.

Now that I understand my limits, there is no need to keep straining to appear more capable than I am.

When I think about it, that is quite a relief.

Before I Knew It, I Was Watching Nothing but Old Television

Recently, whenever an old program appears on cable television, I find myself watching it.

Showa-era music programs, old dramas, and nostalgic streetscapes.

It is not that I want to see them badly enough to search for them. Yet when one happens to be playing, I somehow cannot change the channel.

I used to think constantly about the future, but lately the past has become more interesting.

Perhaps this is what growing older means.

That does not mean I have completely lost interest in the future.

There is one thing I am determined to see for myself.

How far AI will evolve from here.

What will happen to human work? How much will society change? Could AI that is more intelligent than humans eventually become commonplace?

I do not expect very much from my own future, yet I have a strangely strong sense of anticipation about AI’s future.

There Was Also a Time When I Was Deeply Drawn to Buddhism

When I was younger, there was a period when I became deeply absorbed in Buddhism.

What is life? What is suffering? How can we live with peace of mind?

I thought about such questions with considerable seriousness.

But after thinking about them for many years, I cannot say that I found any special answer.

In the end, I arrived at an extremely ordinary conclusion.

What has happened cannot be changed. There is no point worrying about the future either. So I might as well simply get on with today.

Perhaps that resembles Zen thinking.

Then again, I do not practice zazen every day, nor have I attained enlightenment.

Perhaps I have simply grown tired of thinking about everything so much.

I Am Not Very Different from the Person I Was in My Twenties

Another interesting thing is that, despite having lived for more than 50 years, my basic personality has not changed much since my twenties.

The things I like and dislike are fundamentally the same.

I have gained more knowledge and experience, but I do not feel that I have become dramatically more admirable as a person.

I have, however, become much more detached in how I view things.

Things that would have angered me when I was young now make me think, “Well, that is probably just how things are.”

I expect less from other people and less from myself.

Fewer expectations mean fewer disappointments.

That is quite useful.

From Here, I Can Simply Live One Day at a Time

Once you pass 50, you begin to recognize as a reality that your life will end.

When I was young, death belonged to the distant future.

Now I sometimes think about how much time I have left.

That does not make me want to hurry and accomplish something.

I can accept what happens, do what I am able to do, and enjoy whatever I find interesting.

I can try not to regret the past or worry about the future, and simply live today as an ordinary day.

Is that not enough?

I once looked forward to seeing how far I could grow.

Now I find it more enjoyable to watch how the world will change from here.

I have more or less figured out the limits of my own potential, but the limits of AI’s potential are still nowhere in sight.

It seems the rest of my life may be more interesting if I watch AI grow instead of concentrating on my own growth.