Good Life Project

Life’s Hidden Season: When Everything Finally Makes Sense | Mark Nepo

Host: Jonathan Fields
Guest: Mark Nepo
Date: September 25, 2025

Episode Overview

In this rich and heartfelt episode, Jonathan Fields sits down with Mark Nepo—acclaimed poet, spiritual teacher, and best-selling author—to discuss creativity, aging, and living authentically in life's later chapters. The conversation, inspired in part by Nepo's new book The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life, explores how aging can serve as a profound season of integration, transformation, and creative awakening rather than diminishment. Together, they examine the interconnectedness of creativity and introspection, the real meaning of legacy, the balancing act of effort and wonder, embracing impermanence, and the deepening of wisdom as we age.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Meaning of the Fifth Season

• The Source of the Metaphor (04:33)

  • Mark explains that "the fifth season" originates in Chinese lore as a time of integration and clarity—a metaphor for elderhood where we strip away the nonessential and gain wisdom.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 04:33):
    "Chinese sages quickly use that as a metaphor that the elderhood and aging is that fifth season where we integrate and transform and make sense if we can, of all we've been through and the many selves we've been in... We let go of everything that's not essential."

• Creativity as Introspection (05:29)

  • Mark asserts that the creative process and introspective process are effectively one; both are about immersion, wholehearted engagement, and allowing life to shape us.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 06:39):
    "Every detail, when engaged, wholeheartedly opens us to the universal...He [my father] was modeling for me because he never talked...immersion, and the byproduct of immersion is excellence."

Picking Up and Putting Down: The Journey of Aging

• Reflection Portals (09:36)
  • The importance of conscious reflection on what we pick up and put down in life—possessions, roles, expectations—shapes our experience, especially in the second half.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 09:48):
    "The first half of life, in defining who we are, we pick up a lot of things...then we are worn to putting things down in the second half, looking back on our life and saying...each moment has its own insight, its own lesson, its own transformation..."
  • Rituals from different cultures (India, Japan, Egypt) emphasize humility, letting go, and balancing experience—practices relevant at any age (12:00–15:30).

Balancing Effort and Wonder

• Effort vs. Curiosity (22:23)
  • Rather than seeking answers, Mark and Jonathan discuss sitting in a state of curiosity and wonder with life’s questions.
  • Quote (Jonathan Fields, 22:12):
    "What if instead of looking for answers, you could just sit there in a state of curiosity and a state of wonder about the questions themselves?"
  • Mark responds with the importance of following aliveness rather than striving for a product or endpoint.

The Paradoxes of Aging

• Diminishing Physically, Deepening Spiritually (25:31)
  • Aging naturally brings physical decline but also opens opportunities for spiritual and emotional growth—if embraced with openness.
  • Meteor metaphor: as physicality diminishes, one's "light" can shine brighter.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 27:25):
    "We start out thinking that we're going from here to there, but we're really going from in to out."

Remembering vs. Becoming

• From Becoming to Remembering (29:39)
  • With age, the focus shifts from who we are becoming to remembering who we have always been and integrating those truths.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 30:25):
    "The purpose of true memory is by touching into when I experienced it. How can I see where that still lives in me now? Because it hasn't gone anywhere."

Embracing Impermanence

• Transformation Through Loss (33:52–36:00)
  • Grappling with impermanence is essential; Western culture often avoids acknowledging mortality, yet acknowledgment brings depth and gratitude.
  • Mark’s experience with serious illness deepened his commitment to presence.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 35:49):
    "If we do that, just like we were saying, we're offloading the process of being human. We will not experience the fullness of being here. And so impermanence...often is a gift, especially when we're suffering because nothing stays the same."

Saying "Yes" to Life

• The Broken Hallelujah (43:09–47:20)
  • The invitation is to say yes to life in its fullness—including its hardships, disappointments, and losses—without denying their difficulty.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 43:34):
    "Saying yes to life doesn't mean that we deny how hard things are and that we have to accept and express. So, you know, when I'm going through difficulty...in the larger sense, I was saying yes to Life, not just because I was saying yes to the surgery...A broken hallelujah."

Letting Go of Expectations

• Freedom from Inherited Narratives (47:20)
  • True liberation comes not just from letting go of physical baggage, but from releasing societal and familial expectations about who we should be.
  • Quote (Jonathan Fields, 47:20):
    "I wonder if one of the things that we also struggle to put down is not a physical thing, but is expectation. And...when we can divorce ourselves from that, I feel like it's almost the ultimate letting go, which may feel like failure in the moment, but ultimately for so many, it feels closer to truth and maybe even freedom and joy."

The Nature of Legacy

• Legacy as Byproduct, Not Goal (51:51–53:58)

  • Legacy is the natural consequence of living authentically and wholeheartedly, not something to orchestrate or control.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 51:51):
    "You can't plan legacy. You can't direct it. You can't manipulate it. It's not about having your name on a building...If we give our whole being while we're here, our light will continue beyond us and it's not ours to know where and what it touches."

• Forgiveness, Regret, and Being "On Time" (54:41)

  • It’s never too late to embrace change; all experiences are an apprenticeship for now.
  • Quote (Mark Nepo, 54:41):
    "We're always right on time. One of the Zen little sayings...the road to freedom is so long because it has to go through you...Everything is an apprenticeship for now."

The Good Life, Defined

• Living Wholeheartedly (56:25)
  • Mark’s definition of a good life:
    • Being wholehearted when possible.
    • Listening deeply, inwardly and outwardly.
    • Being there for others, without prescription or judgment.
    • Trusting the heart and opening to all of life.
    • Quote (Mark Nepo, 56:25):
      "For me, a good life is being wholehearted when I can, listening deeply both inwardly and outwardly, being there for others without prescription or judgment...My heart has been my greatest teacher...Paradoxically, one of the rewards for being all of who we are is then we can welcome all that we are not."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "The reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." — Mark Nepo (04:33, citing John Ruskin)
• "Every detail, when engaged, wholeheartedly opens us to the universal." — Mark Nepo (06:39)
• "Inwardly, every question opens a practice, not an answer." — Mark Nepo (16:21)
• "We start out thinking that we're going from here to there, but we're really going from in to out." — Mark Nepo (27:25)
• "Saying yes to life doesn't mean that we deny how hard things are." — Mark Nepo (43:34)
• "You can't plan legacy...If we give our whole being while we're here, our light will continue beyond us and it's not ours to know where and what it touches." — Mark Nepo (51:51)
• "We're always right on time." — Mark Nepo (54:41)
• "For me, a good life is being wholehearted when I can, listening deeply both inwardly and outwardly, being there for others without prescription or judgment." — Mark Nepo (56:25)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 04:33 – The meaning of the "Fifth Season" and engagement with life's essentials
• 09:36 – Picking up and putting down: reflecting on what we choose to carry or release
• 12:00–15:30 – Rituals from India, Japan, and Egypt on entering wisdom and the sacred
• 22:23 – Balancing effort with wonder—embracing questions, not answers
• 25:31 – The paradox of physical diminishment and spiritual deepening
• 27:25 – The meteor metaphor; transformation as "flaking off" becoming light
• 29:39 – Remembering vs. becoming; memory and the present self
• 35:49 – Impermanence and its power for presence and aliveness
• 43:09–47:20 – The necessity and complexity of saying "yes" to life
• 51:51 – True legacy as an emergent property of an authentic life
• 56:25 – Mark Nepo’s definition of a good life

Tone and Feel

The conversation is warm, reflective, and wise, filled with poetic insight and grounded spiritual lessons. Both Jonathan and Mark share personal stories, practical reflections, and philosophical musings, illuminating the beauty and complexity of living fully at any stage of life.

For listeners and non-listeners alike, this episode serves as a masterclass in shifting from a focus on external achievement and legacy to an inner experience of meaning, connection, and creativity that deepens with age.