This is an opinion post as well as an observation of eclectic ponderous musings.
People who are old have been ‘around the block’ meaning that they’ve experienced life to some degree.
I say that age gives way to the number of chances to gain wisdom.
People live their lives doing things over and over and have a certain world view for things. They did not merely eat chips and laze about all day in and out for many years not having any such new experiences. As it turns out, every event that occurs around a person also influences that person depending on the degrees of separation to that person. How that person responds to such chaos of the world, is also a chance for them to earn wisdom. The greater the chaos, the greater the chance of wisdom, but the scale of the wisdom gained is based on insight within alone. (Meaning a small thing can cause a great change within a person, but a great change within the world towards a person allows for a higher chance of allowing a change within a person).
So with age comes a given amount of time for a person to gain wisdom. That doesn’t mean that older people are wiser, and this doesn’t mean that older people have more enlightenments. They just have more potential for gaining more enlightenments, chances for more experiences, and have survived to be able to possibly share their wisdom.
If you consider enlightenments as rocks or seashells, the person with more subjective time can collect more or hoard more rocks and seashells, which can also be passed down to their future generations through quality family time or proper secondary education or even street knowledge. The quality time spent with grandparents can impart all sorts of positive and negative teachings onto their young.
A person who spends more time learning things for the sake of learning can learn many things. Them being older gives way to their ability to have learned many things.
Now, if a person doesn’t learn anything, and have been living their life in their craft without reinventing their craft or furthering it for many years, they may not have learned many things. So it requires the capacity to learn from your mistakes and also those of others, to gain wisdom. It requires the insights and intuition to listen to your inner self to gain the insight from within to then reflect and make changes upon the world. An inner change can cause a reaction to act upon the outer world.
When you have ‘grey whiskers’ then you are deemed a sort of ‘elder’ in a tribal society and are respected for having insights and stories that survived those that lived them. This means that you can tell the stories of people’s fathers or grandfathers that they personally have not met due to various circumstances. Recite history that has been buried, burned, or lost without it’s first retelling to fresh ears. That spark or story or vigor can live vicariously through your retelling of the stories and the lessons, to which the elder can impart on younger people.
This doesn’t mean that the elders are right or true. This merely means that elders have the potentiality to gain more wisdom and be able to be a boon to the tribe. That doesn’t guarantee that they will be beneficial, or perhaps they have their own deep seated traumas or hatred that hold them back from seeing reality clearly.
We often see our Languaging how we treat authoritative and old sources. For instance the magazine The New York Times is also called ‘the Gray Old Lady’, as an homage to the values and stories that the magazine has told for a long standing time. Institutions in our society that have lasted for a long time can be viewed as a sort of ‘pillar’ or ‘elder’ to society. If you were, of course, to personify the institution as a person, it would be an ‘elder’.
But just like elder people in life, they (institutions) can grow old and senile or reach a truth or enlightenment that disassociates themselves from reality, turning into a form of psychosis. Their words aren’t always true or understandable, and you may deem them crazy or liars, and perhaps they are or aren’t. In terms of institutions, things like regulatory capture or marketing incentives from private enterprise can corrupt the Legacy Media to pander yellow journalism and offer false opinionate posts rather than the truth or factual journalism, as we see in our times today.
In most societies, we respect the elders, and we respect the strong. The strong are trying to forge their future, and that strength can be physical, intellectual, or willpower, or perhaps a combination. Typically the Strong don’t view the elders that have retired as competition, so they seek the Elder’s Guidance. Those that have sort of given up on the secular life of playing the game or social ladder and have resigned themselves to simply living, perhaps as a hermit. Because the Elder’s aren’t actively competing with the strong, the strong who are wise will seek council with the Elders, for advice and opinions drawing from their experiences.
It’s like a Presidential candidate meeting with another United States Citizen of someone not born of the United States, they aren’t competition. They’re not another fighter in the ring, and they can’t be. These sort of qualifiers or beliefs allow the people to speak to elders in a more free way, less competitive and less strategic.
The Strong are the world builders, and the Elders are story weavers, power and influence respectively.
Every tribe or society has an elder, and if you personally don’t have one, then I suggest that you can open yourself up to look for an elder. A sort of mentor or role model for the things you desire or want. The best being those that you aren’t or won’t compete with. It is a grave sin to betray those that made you who you are, unless of course you’re okay with being a monster. As Robert Greene says in his book the 48 laws of power, “Never outshine the master”. More importantly, never outshine Your master, your teacher, your aide, your role model helper and confidant. It is best to let them exit the competitive stage before you one-up them, that way the question of who is better is but a fantasy. Never undermining their authority when they’re in their ‘prime’.
It’s a power and influence and Machiavellian thing, so try not to bite the hand the helps or feeds you. That also doesn’t mean to be a gullible sacrificial lamb for those that guide you astray, whether they are a devouring mother or a cut-throat businessman, don’t be betrayed and don’t betray.
Of course I speak in generalities, a truly wise person knows they can gleem wisdom from anything, from the youth, the rocks, birds, and bees. Everyone has something to teach you.
As a side note,
Books written by people long ago are also notes and references and lessons from ‘elders’. Ancestors and people long past that aren’t competing actively with you. So you can learn a thing or two by reading a book or the notes of those past. It may be worth looking into those that are living and are current with the times for more up to date information. But as is knowledge, be cautious of rumors and opinions when it comes to discernment of truth and how it actually applies in your own life.
Epilogue;
If anything I can impart on you, dear reader, it’s that wisdom and enlightenments come from within. Something small can cause a great change in your life, and it requires a sort of seeking attitude to look for these changes for these insights. So if you want to be wise, I suggest (not advise) that you embody the attitude to look for more. To question things. To be curious.
If you have the proper attitude, you will eventually do more things than if you had a more passive attitude riddled with resistance to changes. Seek and reflect. Learn and apply. As is life.
This is but a drop of water in the mind bucket of the Neo-Library of Alexandria known as the Internet. Nearly anyone can publish a post or a comment and make their own amendments to the ledger of knowledge both good and bad online.
Atleast until an EMP or catastrophe deletes us, just remember, respect your elders and people and children and learn from them. Most importantly,
Words Mean Things
Words Mean Things 
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