The man I used to be
he sands of time wait for no man, to paraphrase the old proverb, but perhaps that is a good thing. In this youth obsessed culture, we often forget that age is the price of wisdom, and we suffer accordingly. That is not to say that wisdom always comes with age, often it does not.
There are enough old politicians around acting like adolescent schoolyard bullies to prove that. One may remain stupid, but one cannot remain young. The pop culture obsession with youth is another place where we find stark differences between cultures.
This obsession with youth is not a new thing, when boatloads of criminals came to Florida to rob and pillage in the name of the Spanish crown, they immediately became obsessed with finding the “fountain of youth.”
There was no such thing of course, the concept came from a misunderstanding of a sacred story about the Water of Life (we find a similar story in the Bible, Rev. 22, verse 17). We can see from the Spanish misinterpretation that this obsession with youth is not a new thing among European cultures, among Native cultures it is less so because the role of elder is integral to community life and that role is respected as necessary for the well being of the community.
As time passes, I learn more. I learn that I was right about some things and mistaken about others. And even the things I was right about look different with benefit of hindsight (hindsight is 20/20, to quote an old country song). My wife helped me along by pointing out some years ago that I needed to change my dress code, what had been a good look at twentythree was decidedly not a good look at thirty-three.
Part of the problem with a youth obsessed culture is that we do not benefit from the role of elder in society. Old folks are so busy trying to stay young, they do not embrace the wisdom or the duty, and the young folks, for the most part, have not been taught respect so they would not listen anyway. As a result, we commit “the oldest sins in the newest ways” to quote a line from an old movie.
Age is not a choice, but what we do with the resulting experience is.
Over time we learn, hopefully, not to repeat the mistakes of the past, but a society does not learn from history by destroying it or by hiding from it. We only learn if we remember, and it is the role and duty of the elders to remember and to teach, it is the role of youth to listen, to analyze, and hopefully to improve. As the next generation attains age and experience, the cycle is repeated and, we hope, the community evolves to a better place over time as the circle of life continues.
Life is a journey, on both the individual level as well as on the community level. History and tradition give us the map and the compass, but only the elder who has walked the path can tell the youth exactly where the holes and traps and hidden curves are along the way. This is the duty of the elder, to teach so that the young ones do fall along the way.
When I was a young man, I made many mistakes. Though I had the benefit of an excellent education, the exuberance and arrogance of youth led me to many an erroneous conclusion.
Time has passed, experience gained, lessons learned. Today I am not the man I used to be, and that is a good thing.