The Quiet Surprise of Aging: On God, Time, and the Ache for Meaning

The Quiet Surprise of Aging by Seth Metoyer. Mixed Media.

I’m turning 52 this year.

That number doesn’t sound huge, not really. Not in the age of Botox, cryo-chambers, and TikTok grandpas doing backflips. But still, something about passing the halfway mark hits like a steel-toed boot to the soul. Suddenly, you realize you’re closer to the end credits than the opening crawl. And nobody warned you it would feel this weird.

Leo Tolstoy once wrote that the biggest surprise in life is old age. It’s not surprising because we didn’t know it was coming. We did. But it ambushes you anyway. You go through your 30s thinking you’ll stay sharp, driven, and vaguely attractive forever. Then one day you lean forward, groan like a wounded animal, and realize you’ve become your dad. If you’re like me, that realization lands harder, because your dad’s already gone.

My grandfather died half a year before my father. Back-to-back punches from our old nemesis, time. It waits for no one.

And suddenly, time isn’t background noise. It’s the soundtrack. Once, it was a lazy jazz loop. Now it’s a ticking clock in a horror movie.

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The Indifferent Universe

There’s a line from Mad Men that resonated with me years ago: "The universe is indifferent." Don Draper said it like he was ordering coffee, but it stuck with me like a splinter under the skin. It’s also based on Tolstoy, among other philosophers.

For years, I believed the deck was stacked against me. That life wasn’t just random, it was rigged. I’d watch the narcissists win, the liars rise, the soulless succeed. And I got good at eating the crumbs. I told myself that character mattered. That maybe the universe would eventually reward those who weren’t complete bastards.

But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes good people drown while jackasses sail by on yachts named "Destiny."

So yeah, maybe Don and Tolstoy were right. Maybe the universe doesn’t care. Maybe it’s not here to love us, guide us, or teach us anything. It just is. Cold. Mechanical. Random. And maybe that’s not depressing, maybe that’s the challenge: to create meaning in a place that offers none. Well, that’s my current stream of consciousness speaking at the moment.

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God, Gnosis, and the Ache for Belief

Here’s where it gets messier.

I grew up Protestant Christian. Crosses on the wall, prayers at dinner, songs about lambs and blood. Even when I drifted, even when I drank too much or stayed up too late arguing with strangers on the internet, I believed. Maybe not always with fire, but with familiarity. God was there. Somewhere. And that made me feel less alone.

But lately, the silence is louder.

I’ve been wandering into Gnostic texts. Agnostic thoughts. Metaphysical podcasts and mystic rants from people who sound half-enlightened, half-insane. And even as I explore, part of me feels like a traitor. Like I’m betraying the God who raised me.

That’s the painful paradox of the spiritual journey and deconstruction: you dig not to destroy, but to discover. You’re not smashing idols, you’re checking for termites. And yeah, maybe the house collapses. Then what?

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You're Not Crazy. You're Awake.

Sometimes I wonder if this is madness. Talking to a blank ceiling. Searching for signs in smoke and static. But I’ve decided that if this is madness, it’s the kind I’ll take over the alternative.

Because the alternative is pretending. Pretending to know. Pretending to believe. Pretending to be fine while everything inside you screams.

I’d rather be cracked open and confused than polished and fake.

Maybe that’s what this part of life is: a reckoning. A reckoning with time, with faith, with the way we imagined life would go versus how it actually did. Maybe this is where the mask slips and we meet ourselves. Wrinkled. Wounded. Wondering.

Perhaps that’s not defeat, but the start of something real. Maybe meaning isn’t found, but forged, like iron in fire.