God Being Sly With Us

There is a dynamic to human life that makes me just smile and say, "God, you did that on purpose, didn't you?" The dynamic I am referring to is wrapped up in this question: Have you ever noticed what things deteriorate and when?

Think about it.

Would anybody argue against the thesis that all that we are as humans can be boiled down to body, mind and soul? If anything of human essence is not captured in these three basic categories, I defy the objector to point it out. I think those three categories are as a good a rough approximation as one could hope for.

Now.

When does the body enter decline? I'm told it begins in our early twenties. We start to feel it later, but that's when it begins. Peak condition? Enjoy it when you're young. It ain't gonna get better. The world's finest athletes may get in some special accomplishments in their thirties, but they won't be faster runs or greater feats of strength. It's all downhill from those heady immortal days of our youth. No matter how hard you try to make it otherwise.

When does the mind enter decline? Mmmmm, same story. Chess players are at the height of their capacities in their early twenties. If you happen to be Magnus Carlsen, you can reign over the chess board into your thirties, but his dominance at this point in his career only speaks to the even greater advantage he had over the next-best players when he was in his twenties.

Mathematicians, too, put in their finest discoveries while in their twenties. The Fields medal assumes that nothing is lost by restricting recipients to people under the age of forty. When Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's last theorem at the ripe old age of 41, that was a fluke—and the result, notably, of work done over six years by a genius who had been interested in the problem since early childhood.

I could go on with more obvious examples. Rhetorical question: how old were the Beatles when they wrote their best material? Are there any musicians you can think of, past or present, whose music got even better as they approached their golden years?

But we digress. To the point. There's one more question to ask.

When does the soul enter decline? My suspicion is that it doesn't have to. Ever. Bodybuilders, athletes, musicians and mathematicians must yield to the hands of father time pretty early on. But we can work on our souls all our lives. And I think souls can become sweeter and more mature with each passing decade.

I think God had a little fun with that arrangement. It's the way it ought to be. And it's the way it is. What matters most in life, we can work on right up to the end. God knows we are frail, and yet he endowed us with the capacity to "bulk up" and "sharpen up" the most important thing about us, and enables us to do this basically without restriction. The workout gym for the soul is open 24/7 for the entirety of our lives.

Now, if you don't mind, I'll stop here. I need to go work out.