Trajectory

[pjthompson]

Some people have a Hallmark view of illness and old age, an impression that illness ennobles people, that age makes them wise. In my experience, whoever you are if you get sick and when you get old is exactly who you’ve always been, only more so. The rare individual will transcend their illness and face impending death with courage and incredible grace. Most of us slide into it with whatever bag of tricks we’ve always carried: anger, fear, manipulation, martyrdom. Sometimes a sense of humor. Sometimes glimpses of grace with all the negatives combined. The individual mix is as diverse as the population of sick people.

And wisdom in old age? If you were a young person with a questing mind and a need to learn you might have a shot at gaining wisdom as you age. Most of us coast along on our longtime habits, preferring the solace of comfort to the burning quest for knowledge. The quest burns because it often isn’t comfortable and most of us don’t want to bother. So we just get older and our eccentricities and habits become more pronounced, more etched into our soul with deeper grooves. We learn a few things along the way, but we don’t necessarily gain wisdom. Who you were is who you will be. And if you think you’re wise? You probably aren’t.

It takes willpower to change that trajectory. You have to want to be more than the sum of your parts and the collection of your habits. That takes a self-awareness most of us never achieve.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Comments

[sollers]

Nothing to do with the mind comes automatically with age. Someone once drew the distinction between having 20 years' experience, and having one year's experience 20 times.

As an old person with a questing mind and a need to learn (since I'm contemplating retirement I'm having to come to terms with the fact that 67 is objectively old), I'm still not sure what wisdom is, but I would lay claim to a modicum in terms of "everything is more complicated" and "for crying out loud, don't do X because the consequences aren't good": things I have learned in the last half century.

[pjthompson]

having 20 years' experience, and having one year's experience 20 times.

Yep, I think that's an apt analogy.

As an old person with a questing mind and a need to learn

Which you've always had, I'm sure. I think people can acquire a habit of learning, or they can be born with an innate sense of wanting to know. Most of us get too caught up in our habits. If karma is anything, it's the momentum of habitual living, repeated endlessly, until one makes a conscious attempt to free oneself.

I'm not sure I know what wisdom is, either. It's one of those semi-mythical terms people throw about, like enlightenment and whatall. Maybe wisdom is in the doing (like enlightenment) rather than in the attainment of some state of being.

[sollers]

H'm, I think I'll keep away from karma as "my daughter the theologian" knows a lot more about it than I do.

I think my view on wisdom is the ability to give valid advice on how not to make a fool of oneself. Which is pretty damn useful.

[pjthompson]

Perhaps. :-)

[sollers]

"Not to make a fool of oneself" as in "do not get so drunk at the class Christmas party that you forget your handbag and strictly speaking the building will not reopen until the New Year"