" If it’s true, as I claimed in the Prelude, that old is just another word for nothing left to lose, then taking the risk of a deep inward dive should get easier with age. It’s a risk we need to take. Aging and dying well, like everything else worth doing, require practice—practice going over the edge toward “the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest. "

― Parker J. Palmer , On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old