What do I know? Not much...

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: 

and with all thy getting get understanding. 

- Proverbs 4:7  Bible

“Youth is wasted on the young.” – George Bernard Shaw

I suspect the phrase is supposed to mean that it would be nice to have the energy of youth and the wisdom of age.  Hmmm…I am not sure I totally agree with that.  I mean, there is something to be said for being physically vital and peppy, but as time drifts along for me, I kind of like the slower pace and the closer approximation to the next stage of life.

Thursday morning coffee klatch…

Thursday mornings with Bill are something to look forward to.  While we are quite different, we are within a decade of each other and seem to have a certain rhythm almost every time we get together.  Actually, like a surprisingly large number of people with whom I have good resonance, he does not drink coffee.  He is a hot chocolate and muffin man…but I digress.

This week he and I were reflecting a little on the things we have learned in life and how our paths might have been much different, had we known ‘then’ what we know ‘now.’  Hindsight – an exercise in the illusion of the aging mind.  It brings about a sense of appreciation and disappointment.

Appreciation comes from realizing we are still breathing and able to make choices in our lives.  Slowing physiology also helps…one cannot so quickly act as in youth.  That simple reality, eliminates many of the things we used to do in those growing and maturing years.  This ‘natural slowing’ acts, or should act as a barrier to unbridled foolishness.  It means, if one is so lucky, a little pre-thought can prevent collateral damage on the back end.  I should be clear here…it does NOT mean we ARE necessarily any wiser…just a little slower, hopefully allowing us to BE a little wiser.

The disappointment is actually for exactly the same reasons.  What if, when we were younger, we had understood the importance of relationships…the tenderness of the human soul…the ease with which damage, in an unthinking way, can be done to another.  What if we had understood there are consequences for every action – private or public.  That wealth has little to do with the things we acquire.  That good health and a degree of mental clarity mean everything.  Regrets?  Not really, just the sense that we might have been a little less selfish and more sensitive to the things that matter.  Ah yes, to have known it then…

Friends stopped by…

As we chatted, we both paused and stared off into space…the vaults of memory normally locked with impenetrable and apparently lost passwords, opened and long forgotten experiences/people visited Bill and I at the table.  It is curious that where conscious effort often fails to discover buried places in our minds – pathways obscured by time and misplaced keys – a simple word spoken, a smell in the air, a song sung, a written word, and seemingly inaccessible doors are flung open as though they had never existed.

The table was a small two-seater, but a dozen or so people I had known and experiences with them wandered by and visited for a few moments.  I was filled with wonderment, as is the case when this happens, how easily they came; how vividly they passed by on the digital screen in my mind.  Their appearances frozen in the era from which they had been recorded.  A high school girlfriend at seventeen…an episode with a friend in Vietnam…a research project with a colleague in university…camping with youth groups…playing in a church band – a small part of the cast of characters who stopped by to touch my heart.  While Bill and I spent only a few minutes together, decades of familiarity slipped through my mind.

A little reflection…

Later, on my way home, I had the chance to revisit these folk with a little more leisure.  Regrets?  Not really.  I have been blessed – I think blessed – with the ability to walk away from things in my life that have ended and to look forward.  On the other hand, I can’t help wondering how things might have been different had I said yes to certain things and no to others.

There was a sense of gratitude for those people and circumstances that built and edified my life.  There was a sense of gratitude for having managed to escape certain consequence of choices, made in ignorance, without damage…better said…without being subjected to punishment.

Yet regardless of outward consequence, thoughts shape ideas…ideas words…words actions…actions character.  While character is the horse upon which we travel through life, it is not always consistent…it is human…with flaws and scars.

Bill and I had chatted about the things we had learned which led, as our conversations often do, to what it is we think any of it means.

The question, of course – would we have been any different?

The conversation drifted forward...
While we are both fellows of faith, he is less certain than I of an after life.  Better said, he is unsure – possibly hopeful.  For me it has moved from ‘I think’ to ‘I believe’ and finally ‘I know.’

“I think à I believe à I know,” is a bit different than “Je pense donc je suis,” (I think therefore I am – René Decartes) but it does seem to have meaning as I have found the ‘…wine aging in the barrel.’

To be continued…

- ted