I do not believe that we become more spiritual as we age. Rather, I believe that youth is spent in intimate, hormonal concert with all things physical, reproducing, creating our material world and recreating it, all with great fervor and enthusiasm, and that this is entirely natural. Very gradually, as we grow older, this hormonal flood slows and becomes a trickle, allowing our minds to focus upon other possibilities.

The quieting of our intense relationship with the physical world gives us time and attention to invest in other matters. We consider philosophies with less concern for how much money it will earn for us, how much status. We become less concerned with the opinions of others, less fearful of expressing ourselves honestly and sincerely. We have learned enough about our world that we are more able to weigh and correctly understand the dynamics we are observing, making our judgement more stable, less vulnerable to errors of ignorance and inexperience. Ideally, most of us have also learned patience by our elder years. I believe that these qualities can give the illusion of spirituality, when what may actually be at work might be better described as maturity.

True spirituality bears little relationship to the material stages of our lives. It is, after all, spiritual in nature. It's source is other than our material lives altogether, regardless of our age.

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