Øivind H. Solheim

INTERVIEW
Michael Taylor:
Welcome to the Not Okay With Gray podcast, where our intention is to empower men and women to change their mindsets about aging so they can make the rest of their lives the best of their lives.
This podcast is designed to be a dose of high-octane motivation and inspiration that propels you to embrace the idea that you really are not aging. What you are actually doing is evolving. And through your evolution, the longer you live, the better you become at living.
Our goal is to empower you to create the life of your dreams, because you are never too old to build a life that you love. We want you to build a life of joy, passion, and purpose, filled with inner peace, dynamic health, great relationships, and financial abundance. This is what we mean by saying, "I'm not okay with gray."
So, if you are ready to begin the journey of transformation that will lead you to authentic happiness, it is time to get started with your host, Coach Michael Taylor, the irrepressible optimist with a passion for the impossible.
Michael Taylor:
Welcome to the Not Okay With Gray podcast, where we have real conversations for people who know there is more to life than just going through the motions.
I'm Michael Taylor, human potential architect. Today's conversation is one I have really been looking forward to, because we are diving into a topic that every single one of us is navigating, whether we talk about it or not. That topic is aging.
But not from the usual perspective. Not just the physical side of it, but the deeper question: What does it really mean to live well as we grow older?
My guest today is Øivind Solheim, a Norwegian novelist, essayist, and former educator with more than forty years of experience exploring what it means to be human through writing, reflection, and lived experience.
He is the author of several novels, including The Man Who Stopped Aging, a powerful and philosophical story that challenges us to think differently about time, aging, and how we choose to live the years we are given.
What I appreciate about Øivind's work is that it does not just tell stories. It invites us to slow down, reflect, and take a deeper look at our own lives, especially in a world that often encourages us to rush past the very moments that matter most.
And if you are listening to this podcast, chances are you have reached a point in life where you are starting to ask different questions. Not just, "What have I accomplished?" but, "Am I truly living?"
So today we are going to explore what it means to age consciously, to find meaning in the later chapters of life, and how to avoid drifting into a life that feels comfortable but unfulfilled. Because, as you know, we are not okay with gray.
So, let's get into it. Hello, Øivind. How are you?
Øivind H. Solheim:
I am fine. Thank you for having me.
Michael Taylor:
All right. So, you have spent more than forty years as an educator and writer exploring what it means to be human. Looking back, how has your understanding of a meaningful life evolved over time?
Øivind H. Solheim:
That is a huge question.
I will start by telling you about my debut novel, which I wrote and published in 1978, because already then I started with questions like: What is life? What is death?
The story in this book, which in Norwegian is called Stupet - The Fall, we can say in English - is about a young man who was approximately my age at that time, thirty-one years old, and who feared for his life. He felt something in his breast that pained him. So he thought of cancer and such things.
That was the story I wrote when I was thirty-one years old: a young man who felt, realistically or imagined, that he was ill. I will not tell you how it went with him, but readers can find the book in Norway, at least if they want to.
Now I am seventy-eight and a half years old. I will be seventy-nine in September. And the story about me writing The Man Who Stopped Aging is the story about how I tried to touch the ground and find out: Where am I now?
I retired ten or twelve years ago, and then I got much more time for reflection and for doing the things that I love doing. I very much love going outside in nature in Norway, walking long hikes for several hours all alone. That is one of my favourite pastimes.
Other things are taking photographs, especially in nature, and of course writing. Thinking and writing is my passion.
When I retired, I thought: Now I am soon sixty-seven years old. What is left now? What do I do now?
I knew from personal experience that life can be short or long. I had a brother who died at forty-two from cancer. My father died in 1989, seventy-four years old. That was the average age in Norway at that time. And my mother died three years ago, ninety-eight and a half years old.
So I have experienced both short-lived relatives and a very long-lived relative. My mother is, for me, something of an ideal, a person I looked very much up to, because she has given me so much in my life in her quiet voice.
She never said to me, "You should write. You should become an author." But she always said to me, "You can manage this. You can do this. You are a good boy."
For me, that is one of the most basic values: the human connection, the people who are near me, whom I love, and who love me and show it. That is the foundation for my writing and my existence, I can say.
Michael Taylor:
Your book, The Man Who Stopped Aging, has such a compelling title. What inspired that idea, and what does "stopping aging" really mean in the context of your work?
Øivind H. Solheim:
The last question is a fundamental question.
I wrote this book because I love creating stories with people who act and interact with one another. Then I found this idea of a man much older than I am now. He is twenty years older than I am. I imagined his life with losses. He has had several wives - one whom he loved very much and lived with, and whom he lost, and then another woman who came after the first one and whom he has also lost.
So it is the story of human loss, of a man living closely and loving his dearest, and of how his life is when he has lost these persons in his life.
The thing is, he feels: Life will go on. I will not give up. I will not stop now. I am in good health.
William, that is his name, thinks: I am in good health. I will go outside. I will make my hikes in nature, alone if I have to, and I will live alone. Or if I meet someone, I will live with them also. But the most important thing for me is that as long as I do not have health issues, I can live longer.
Michael Taylor:
Do you believe that aging is more of a physical reality or a psychological one?
Øivind H. Solheim:
Aging is a biological issue, of course. But it is also a mental one.
When we age, we can think: I am very old now, so there is nothing left. Life has not much to give me. That is a bad way to approach aging.
I have been thinking a lot lately about what would happen if I experienced being seriously ill, as many people do. How can they approach life with a positive attitude, even if there is a threat - a real threat - to their lives?
The question of stopping aging is not about stopping physical aging. Of course, we can also do things there that are important: exercise, going outside, good nutrition, and social relations with the nearest people.
That is also important, and that is, in a way, a way to stop aging in the sense that when you say, "I will live for a long time. I will persist. I will be here for myself and for what I owe to myself," that is a sort of consciousness, a way of thinking that I think is basic and can help people live longer, even if they have health issues or other problems.
Michael Taylor:
That really aligns with my whole philosophy. When I wrote my book, I'm Not Okay With Gray, it was really about changing the mindset around aging. That sounds like what you are saying.
Øivind H. Solheim:
Yes.
Michael Taylor:
There is growing research suggesting that happiness, fulfilment, and even meaningful productivity can actually increase later in life. Why do you think society still tends to frame aging primarily as a time of decline?
Øivind H. Solheim:
I think it is more important than ever to talk about this.
The period in life when I stopped working for an employer and started working for myself has been a period where I have increased liberty and freedom in my life. I can do whatever I want with it, and I can organise my life. I can organise the way I live and evolve.
One of the most important aspects of human existence, in my opinion, is how we relate, how we think, and how we build ourselves up emotionally in relation to the question of the meaning of life.
I think there is so much people can do.
I often wonder when I see all the bad things happening in the world. It is too large a topic to touch here, but I am very preoccupied with what I see around me. My life is not good if the world is not good - not because I suffer personally, but because there is so much suffering in the world.
So I connect this question a little to what we can do for other people and for ourselves.
Michael Taylor:
Absolutely. I think most people spend the first half of life chasing success, and then in the second half we start searching for meaning. Has that been your experience?
Øivind H. Solheim:
Absolutely.
At my age, I experience much more clarity. I understand that things matter in other ways than they mattered before. Success is not so important to me now.
I have written a book. I have spent several years trying to make this book known. But the sales are very low, and I am not sad about that. I accept that this is how the world is built. There are so many new novels published every year, and I do not use a great budget to sell my book.
So I accept that my book is in the world. It exists, and we talk about it today. That is a great thing for me to experience.
But I think that success, in that ordinary sense, means nothing. I have enough from my pension to live well. My wife and I have a house together. We have children and grandchildren. We have birthdays. We have new children being born. It is so great to be alive, and I want to stay here forever.
As I would say with my protagonist in The Man Who Stopped Aging: What if we could live until one hundred, or even one hundred and ten?
I know that is something risky to say, because I believe that when I am twenty years older than now, approaching one hundred, I may feel many things differently from now. Now I do not have much pain in my body. I do not have much difficulty moving. I am not a marathon runner, but I can walk for hours in nature and I enjoy it.
When I approach one hundred, I am aware that I may be less enthusiastic about growing as old as one hundred and ten, for instance, because that can bring many difficult experiences and health issues.
But the most important thing for me is to be here and now, to look forward, and to experience that. I do not need more money. I do not need success on the front page of this or that, or to go viral on the internet.
I am enjoying life where I am. That is the most important thing for me: writing, imagining stories and people. Yes, that is a good life for me.
Michael Taylor:
In your experience, what is the biggest mistake people make as they enter the later stages of life?
Øivind H. Solheim:
I think the biggest mistake may be not to think: I still live. I am still alive. I look forward. I do not have the whole world, but I have something, and I will take care of what I have.
I will try to develop myself personally. That is the most important project a human being can have, both in younger age and in later years. The most important project we can have is to develop ourselves into fully human beings.
And we all know inside us what a fully human being is. It is a person who gives and receives and takes what comes.
I once saw a poem about this, and there were two sentences: falling and rising up again. Those two sentences say something about the attitude toward life.
I think the most important thing we can do, as young people and as old people, is to develop our attitude toward ourselves and toward life.
And I agree totally that people must stop saying, "You are not good enough." You must say, "I am who I am, and I stand for that. I am good enough."
What I have noticed in recent years is that I am not as vulnerable as I was as a younger person.
Then I looked behind me and thought: What are they saying about me? What are they thinking about me?
Now I do not fear anything like that.
That is why I dared to publish a book in English. Some years ago, I decided to publish in English also, and not only in Norwegian, because I realised there are so many people who understand and read English. That was my decision in 2018, I think, and I wrote articles about it on Medium.
That is why I am not afraid.
I think the worst feeling humans have today is fear that prevents them from being who they can be.
Michael Taylor:
Absolutely. On this podcast I talk about what I call "gray living," which is just going through the motions instead of truly engaging with life. How do people avoid drifting into that gray living stage, where they are just going through the motions and not really feeling fulfilled?
Øivind H. Solheim:
I am not sure I captured the question. Can you develop it a little more?
Michael Taylor:
How do you challenge people not to live a boring gray life? What do you suggest people do so their lives are not so boring?
Øivind H. Solheim:
They must stand up. You must stand up and say to yourself: Life is great. There are so many things. There is so much beauty in the world. There are so many beautiful human beings. There are so many things you can do that can fill your life.
Start with something small.
Start with something that interests you.
Find your hobby.
Someone once said to me, "Your hobby is writing." I said, "Oh, is it?" But then I realised, yes, it is my hobby. It is a very important hobby: writing, being interested in people, photographing, nature, and so on.
Start with something you like and tell yourself: I am the most important person in the universe because I am me.
That is the same for everyone. We are all that person, and we must act accordingly.
That is another side of it: the responsibility we have as human beings. We are human beings who are moral persons. We know values. We know what values are.
Not everyone seems to respect values, and that is another very large story - how we can influence people who struggle with that part of existence.
I think if people can have a positive look on themselves, without being narcissistic of course, they can tell themselves: I am an important person in my life.
And that is the same for other people. Everyone has something to contribute in life and in existence.
I am not a religious person. I have thought of Einstein in this context. I used to think of him as a religious person, but then I read an article saying that he was not a religious person in the conventional sense. He was a person who lived very actively in his consciousness. He had the ability to wonder and ask: What is this? How is this?
That is a way of living that I think many of us should practise every day.
Michael Taylor:
Do you feel like this current season of your life is, in some ways, your most creative and productive season?
Øivind H. Solheim:
Absolutely. I have never been more creative.
There is also artificial intelligence, which I can use as a tool to investigate or examine questions or find information. That is a wonderful thing to help me.
But even without artificial intelligence, I feel I am much more productive when it comes to ideas and thoughts than I was earlier.
I have so many thoughts almost all the time, mostly in the morning when I wake up from sleep. I stay in bed, take my computer, and write ideas. I dictate ideas into my phone that are later written.
Because we are living in this age of technological progress, I think we are very lucky and have many more opportunities than otherwise.
But I also think it is very important not to let AI take command of what we do, because then it will destroy the ability we can develop to think for ourselves.
That is a huge question that we must address.
Michael Taylor:
Absolutely. Many people fear starting something new later in life. What would you say to someone who feels like it is simply too late for them?
Øivind H. Solheim:
I have made some tentative essays, trying to create a structure to help older people.
I am now helping two older women, both around my age, to write their memoirs. I find this such a beautiful idea. One is a woman in America who subscribes to my Substack. It is a workshop where I will help her write her memoir, because that is her project now. The same is happening in Norway, where an elderly woman wants to start a similar project, and I will help her.
I think the most important thing is to see that this is feasible. You can do something.
Writing about your own life, investigating who you are and who you were earlier in your life - that is such an interesting and great project.
I have experienced this myself. I may feel that I do not remember much of my life, but when I stop with a photograph and go back to a situation many years ago, I experience that I remember details. I remember things I thought I had forgotten.
That is a very good idea for people my age, younger, or older: think of your life. Think of what you have experienced. Focus on scenes and people in your life, and perhaps write something about them.
One should never be afraid of doing something that can stand after we have left here.
We can think of this as a sort of legacy.
My books are, of course, a legacy. But other people who do not publish books also leave a legacy.
My mother, for instance, never wrote more than a few words in her notebook. She did not talk much. But my mother lives inside me and my family. Each time I write something about my mother and publish it on social media, relatives say, "Oh, that is exactly how she was."
So even a person like my mother, who never spoke much and never published anything, can be remembered. She is remembered because of the person she was.
Everyone leaves a legacy. But you can live more if you take time to remember.
Remember is a very important word here.
Remember what was.
And when you remember, you can examine things and try to see: Is this real? Was this what happened? Or was it something else that happened?
Remembering is the starting point for leaving a legacy.
Michael Taylor:
It is never too late. I really believe it is never too late to start something new or try something different. I am only sixty-five - and I say only sixty-five because I have set an intention. I want to live to be at least one hundred years old. That is one of my goals. I want to get to three digits.
One thing you have mentioned a couple of times, and I know a lot of people struggle with, is fear.
What gave you the courage to continue evolving instead of just settling for comfort?
Øivind H. Solheim:
That is a big question.
As I see it, courage comes with age when you are surrounded by the right people - people who do not hold you down.
When there are people who hold you down, you need much more courage and strength to become free from those forces.
If we look at social media, for instance, what we see there now is so sad and so bad. There are so many people who hold other people down, and who do much worse things than that. There is so much bad being said on social media.
I think we are grown people. We are experienced people. We have wisdom. We can do something. We can make a difference.
You must tell yourself, if you are my age or younger or older: I am an important person. I can make a difference.
Begin with the people you are confident with.
And also this rule: if there are people who are not good to you, who are bad for you, create distance from those people and connect with people you know are good for you.
You can feel it immediately if a person is good or bad for you. If they try to approach you, you can try to have a relation and see whether it works or not.
I know many people online who read my things and leave comments that are kind and that help me in my evolution. Happily, I do not meet many people online or on social media who attack me directly. I am lucky for that.
I imagine that if I had many attacks because people did not like me, it would be much harder to do what I do.
I do not deliberately provoke people. I do not want to create noise. But sometimes I write political articles, and people do not agree with me. Then, of course, they say what they mean. But most of what I experience is acceptable.
So I think it is very important not to stop saying things or doing things.
Michael Taylor:
I think there are two ways to live life. We can live consciously or unconsciously.
My assessment is that most people live unconsciously, meaning they have not taken the time to really look within their own hearts and minds to see what they believe and how they feel. They are on what I call the societal roller coaster. They are just going with the flow.
How would you describe living consciously versus living unconsciously?
Øivind H. Solheim:
I can take myself as an example.
I have lived both unconsciously and consciously, and I am conscious of the difference between those two modes of living.
I think I have always been conscious about wanting to be happy in life. I wanted to take an education. I studied at the university. I studied Camus and became interested in his philosophy and other philosophy.
So I think I have been conscious much of my life, or most of my life, with many things.
But I have also experienced things that have shown me I was not conscious enough. Some things have been very bad for me, very sad for me, and for the people I was with. I have experienced ruptures also.
When I think of what I have done most of my life, I think I can stand up for it.
One thing I have learned in my later years is my relationship to alcohol.
Since I was eighteen or twenty, it had been a habit to drink beer every weekend. Not every day, but every weekend. When I studied at the university, and later, it became part of my lifestyle.
Now I am very happy that I stopped some years ago. My wife said to me, "You should stop with those beers. You do not need them."
And I have experienced now, not only because I stopped, but also because my body is older and does not support alcohol in the same way, that when I take one glass of beer, I feel it in a way that is not good in the hours after.
The most important aspect of this for me is that if I drink a beer or two, or a glass of wine, and then try to go on working with what I work on, my mind becomes completely unconcentrated.
Earlier I saw the use of alcohol as a kind of inspiration. It made ideas flow and feelings come up. But that is only at the beginning, when you start to drink a glass or two. After that point, I become very unconcentrated, and I cannot be as productive as I am when I do not consume alcohol at all.
I think many people know that alcohol is not a good substance.
I am not a fanatic against alcohol. I know that someday, in a month or two, I will have a glass of beer or some wine. But I know exactly what happens then: I lose concentration, I lose creativity, and I lose productivity when it comes to writing, for instance.
Michael Taylor:
I can relate. I have not had an alcoholic beverage in more than thirty-five years. I just decided one day that I did not need it.
In talking about conscious living versus unconscious living, for most of my young life I lived unconsciously. I was doing everything society said I was supposed to do to be happy.
I had the house, the wife, the 2.5 kids, the success, if you will. But as I look back in retrospect, I was completely unconscious. I was on the societal roller coaster, just following along with what society said I was supposed to do.
It was not until after my divorce that I became conscious. I had to stop looking outside myself and start looking within my own heart and mind. I realised I had a choice. I could choose to think this way. I could choose to believe these things.
So it is a process of becoming conscious, I think, because we all get trapped in society. But I love the idea that we are having this conversation now, because we are giving people an opportunity to think consciously about aging.
That is a big question: to see the positive aspects of aging.
I challenge people by saying, "I want to make the rest of your life the best of your life." We do not want to look backwards. We want to look forward.
So I want to ask you this question: Looking back in retrospect, if you could sit down with your thirty-year-old self, what would you say to him?
Øivind H. Solheim:
I would probably have said: You should have taken more care. You should have stopped and thought about what the situation was then. What are you doing now? What will be the consequences of what you do now?
There was a relationship that lasted for many years, and it was not good. Not for the woman I was with, not for our children, and not for me.
Because of what happened, at least one person was very sad. I think this is the first time I recognise that I should have said to myself: I wish I had not done it.
Before this moment, I have always said to myself that I stand for what I did, and that I did my best to sort things out and to make the situation livable for everyone. After all, I stayed many years in that relationship.
At one point it was not possible any longer. I came to a point, and we agreed to end it.
Afterwards, I understood that she would have preferred it not to end, but then I was gone.
I have never regretted for myself that I left. I met the woman I have now lived with for forty years. I love her, and we are growing old together. This period is the best period of my life.
But I do not think I should feel guilt because of what I did forty or fifty years ago, because what I did was not the sort of thing that should give me a feeling of guilt.
Michael Taylor:
For our listeners, especially those over fifty who feel there is still more life in them than the world expects, what is one shift they can make today to begin living more intentionally? What is one little golden nugget you can share that they can use to begin living more consciously?
Øivind H. Solheim:
The key word for me is change, or movement.
Change and movement are two sides of the same thing.
I have given myself a promise - a promise I do not hold often enough, luckily - and that is to do something else. Do something different today.
I know that human beings are very characterised by habits. We do the same things. I am very much such a person. I do the same things, and I love doing the same things. I love going on the same walks in nature. I love passing time in the ways I am used to.
But the best thing you can do is to do something different. Find something each day.
For instance, go out for a walk. Move your body. See people. See other things than you usually see. I think that is a very important way to increase quality of life.
Do something different.
Think of yourself as someone who can experience and live something different, and then have a better life because you do that.
So stop the routine. That is the thing.
Michael Taylor:
Before we wrap up, I would love to give you an opportunity to share how people can connect with you, explore your books, and continue engaging with your work. What is the best way people can find you?
Øivind H. Solheim:
People can find me on Medium.com and on Substack, where I write a lot.
The books I have published are available on Amazon.com. The Man Who Stopped Aging is available there, and I would recommend the audiobook for people who want to get to know what William's life is about.
It is a four-hundred-page book that tells his story. Personally, I love reading it by listening to it. That is a very good way into the book.
Michael Taylor:
The book is The Man Who Stopped Aging, and people can find it on Amazon and other online bookstores, right?
Øivind H. Solheim:
Yes.
Michael Taylor:
Do you have a website?
Øivind H. Solheim:
Yes. It is https://oivind.solheim.online/
Michael Taylor:
I will put a link underneath this interview so people can access your website.
Øivind H. Solheim:
Great. I will send you the link.
Michael Taylor:
Perfect. I want to give you an opportunity to share any closing final thoughts.
Øivind H. Solheim:
I think that writing, thinking, and writing is one of the most important aspects of human beings.
We differ from animals, and we also differ from artificial intelligence, in the sense that we have feelings, intuitions, and ideas.
We can do things that are very special, things artificial intelligence cannot do.
The most important thing for me is what I say as a motto on my online accounts: Remain human in the age of AI.
What this means to me is: take care of your capacity to think for yourself and to take a standpoint yourself in every situation in life, because AI cannot do that for you.
Michael Taylor:
Absolutely.
Øivind, I just want to say thank you, brother, for spending an hour with us and sharing your wisdom.
Like yourself, I am excited about aging. I think the rest of my life will be the best of my life, and I think it only gets better if we consciously choose for it to get better.
Again, thank you for sharing your insights with us. We really appreciate it.
This has been another episode of Not Okay With Gray. I want to leave you with the simple comment Øivind made: Do something different. That is the key. Do something different.
You have to take complete control of your life, and it begins with making a choice. So choose to be the best that you can possibly be.
We will see you next episode. Take care.