What’s lost, of course, is sex. The sex drive, around which we organize our psyches, begins to diminish. Its pressure to define us begins to recede, and we become increasingly nervous about this growing open space inside. If we aren’t in pursuit of sex and its many attendants (adventure, love, security), then what are we in pursuit of? What are we? Who are we?
I’ve heard people express relief that their sex drive is shrinking, but I’ve never believed them. Oh, I believe they felt relief for the envisioned end of all their disappointments and frustrations; but this is a negative relief, not a fulfillment or even a genuine finishing-up.
What’s found, it seems, is found only by those few who do “finish up,” and they have trouble saying what it is. In part, I think it’s something like a new sex center in the mind—an orgasmic rapture for existence that just goes on and on. We’ve had little hints of it; even the young man’s fantasy of having an orgasm that lasted and lasted was a hint of it.
Real joy for existence is the only next place to get. And the only way to get there is to fulfill ourselves where we are right now. In other words to get there here.