Then, as we grow older and enter middle age, something else begins to change. Our energy level drops. Our identity solidifies. We know who we are and we accept ourselves, including some of the parts we aren’t thrilled about.

I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.

Growing older is to grow more wicked.

The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather

Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses.

"Perhaps we shall learn, as we pass through this age, that the 'other self" is more powerful than the physical self we see when we look into a mirror.

"En vieillissant on devient plus fou, et plus sage.

"Growing older, we become both wiser and more foolish.

As we grow old...the beauty steals inward.

Sometimes we reveal ourselves when we are least like ourselves.

When we face the worst that can happen in any situation, we grow. When circumstances are at their worst, we can find our best. When we find the true meaning of these lessons, we also find happy, meaningful lives. Not perfect, but authentic. We can live life profoundly.

Your old self is no longer suited to manage the life you have today, and so they must transform into who you are becoming now.

It is good to have many personae, to make collections, sew up several, collect them as we go along in life. As we become older, with such a collection at our behest, we find we can portray any aspect of self most anytime we wish. However, at some point, most particularly as one grows into past mid-life and on into old age, one's personas shift and meld in mysterious ways. Eventually, there is a kind of 'meltdown', a loss of personae complete, thereby revealing what would, in its greatest light, be called 'the true self.

Growing old can mean more than slowing down; it can be a time of truly growing down and incarnating further. Because the inner genius that tries to incarnate through us will keep calling for us to awaken further until we come to the end of our life adventure.

As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.