In reflecting over the past seven-plus decades, I can't help but see them as chapters in my book of life.
With every change of life's seasons and move to a new environment I was constantly and subtly growing into a new person and didn't take time to realize it.
You'll find the same thing should you one day choose to examine your own life this way.
Not long ago I wrote about Thomas Cole's famous series of paintings, "The Voyage of Life," which describes on canvas four stages our lives, infancy, youth, adulthood and old age. While Cole was on target with his perceptions, even including a lifelong guardian angel in each scene, I see my process in more incremental terms.
We human animals are constantly evolving with each new experience, lesson, person, encounter and emotion that enters our life.
Consider how every minute some 300 million cells in our bodies die to be replaced by new ones. In the time it takes to read this column, you will have have replaced close to a billion cells that 10 minutes ago had been part of you.
In retrospect, I was no more the person in appearance or attitudes at age 10 than I'd become by 16, and the same succession proved true across the years.
I've read we pretty much become new people physically about every seven years through cellular changes within our bodies, with the exception of neurons in the cerebral cortex.
But more than how we progressively stoop our way into old age and its inevitable physical afflictions, I'm referring equally to our knowledge and how we perceive existence.
My first chapter through about age 7 was filled with family, classrooms, playgrounds, making friends and getting to know my extended family, especially cousins around my age. It was a magical period filled with introductions to the likes of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
Chapter Two, between 8 and 16, was a period of self-discovery, whether it be with friends or the joys of the outdoors, like catching crawdads and fishing Crooked Creek, engaging in athletics and discovering the opposite sex as hormones kicked in. It was also the chapter of my introduction to the Christian faith.
Chapter Three, 16 to 21, was devoted to the activities of a self-conscious youth full of exuberance and searching for his identity in a vast world. It was a chapter of learning to drive a stick shift and to dance and the need to gain confidence and acceptance while trying to fit in with my peers.
By Chapter Four, age 22, I'd been introduced to the responsibilities of adulthood for the first time courtesy of Coast Guard boot camp, and was beginning to consider building a future by establishing a family, finishing college and landing a job doing something I enjoyed. It was a time to focus really for the first time.
Chapter Five, between 23 and 30, were invested in full-blown responsibilities with jobs as the editor of two daily papers in Arkansas, a wife, son and monthly bills. I was also determined to do the best job possible in my chosen craft and hope it paid off down the road. My motivation button had been pushed, along with a newfound empathy for those less fortunate.
All that remained was the next chapter yet to unfold. I also discovered injustice in my fifth chapter and how prevalent it was in all aspects of life together.
In 1976, Chapter Six began with a life-broadening fellowship that allowed me and my family to travel America in a motor home for a year and write about the people and their moods during the nation's bicentennial year. That chapter would end back at the Arkansas Democrat heading investigations after encountering and surviving big-city life through reporting stints at the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Sun-Times.
Experiencing life and work in two major cities for the first time opened my eyes to the ways hundreds of millions of Americans live and interact daily, which was a far cry from the smaller communities back home.
In many ways, this busy chapter would provide my most prolific growth.
Chapter Seven, by age 40, found me leading investigations for three years at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix. That was followed by five years heading the Kiplinger master's degree-granting fellowship program for professional journalists at Ohio State University. This became the chapter that provided my spirit with the most learning.
Through each of these chapters, my resulting attitudes, thoughts and accumulated life experiences, gained largely through work and myriad friendships, continued shaping me into a different person than the one I'd been during the earlier ones. It was a growth that created a new me as each chapter was born.
Chapter Eight found me out of the classroom and back in the newsroom at The Asbury Park Press, New Jersey's second-largest daily, where I led investigations for a year.
It was perhaps the longest year of my life and I learned a lot of about trying to live in a place like New Jersey as a fella from Harrison who could never survive for long amid the harsh East Coast culture.
And I didn't. I said a prayer one evening that thankfully led me back home to become the editor of Fayetteville's Northwest Arkansas Times for six years to compete that chapter.
Chapter Nine led me out of traditional journalism after decades and back home to Harrison, where I continued to expand my horizons as the director of communications for American Freightways Trucking, which sold to FedEx one year later.
I learned a lot about the trucking industry and corporate public relations that year, but was thankful to WECHO Media publisher Walter Hussman to have the opportunity to return to journalism and launch this column in 2001, my Chapter 10.
Chapters 11 and 12 brought steady changes in my attitudes about everything from changes in my chosen craft to our culture to how we share our our lives, which is far different than the way life was in my early chapters. I find I'm now more fixed in my views about many things, including the direction of our country today.
My latest chapter, rather poetically, has led me back home to Harrison where the first chapter was written, and a place of deeper understanding for all I've seen and learned since.
I suppose I'd best summarize it as becoming more settled within the place where I began.
I read not long ago that the progression of leaving previous chapters behind to become new people is akin to dying.
As in existence, once a phase of our lives is complete, we can never go back, leaving only the uncertainty of what chapters may lie ahead.
One has to have reached a certain age and completed a number of chapters to be able to see what each has contributed toward who you've become. If you are at that point, or close, I'd advise giving it a try one day when you're alone with your thoughts. A good review of what got us to this point can help put the experience we agree to call life in meaningful context.
Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at [email protected].