Woe to the age that seeks wisdom from the young and discipleship from the old. Learn the art of movement from those in their physical prime, but it is best to turn to the reflective and experienced when seeking how to live in the mind. And many of the best and wisest teachers only remain in words! Do not let the resentment of those who badmouth the great artistic canon distract you. Why not seek wisdom from the best? And beware any age that tells you there is no such thing as “best.” They certainly also do not believe in your best interests.
Youth should be celebrated for everything except its wisdom. Friends, many of us still count ourselves as young, but I suspect that most of us are old enough that we sometimes reflect on bygone periods in our lives and think of ways we would have lived differently were we able to do it over again. Errors we didn’t know were errors, missed opportunities, false confidences and naïveté, surely, play a part in all of our stories. Now, think of how much useful wisdom we would have to offer our younger selves if we were able to speak to them (and if they were willing to listen, by no means a certainty). And what is the source of this wisdom? Lived experience that has been reflected upon.
Youth is beautiful because its natural inclination is to believe in itself, and we should not discourage this in any way, but this doesn’t mean that theirs is a wisdom that necessarily needs to be exported! To give a personal example, I was never as sure of my ethics, my worldview, my religious beliefs and political convictions as I was when I was in high school. And what a blessing to all of you and to the world at large that I did not have a substack or pulpit at that time (alas many years ago)! I needed the sincerity and passion of those beliefs to fuel me in my path forward, but I certainly had not yet learned anything worth sharing to help others on their journey. Everything I thought I knew was too inborn, untested, abstract. The mind shapes the world until we actively dive into life, and wisdom only begins in earnest once we let the world speak for itself—and really listen to it.
Wisdom is the joy of a beautiful view, calm and focused, appreciating its varied details and subtleties—but real wisdom also respects horizons and refuses to speak for them. Give unto the horizon what is the horizon’s! Some distances are absolutes! There is so much beyond our farthest mental leap. Wisdom says I know this and I do not know that. To think yourself wise before you’ve really lived—there is no greater folly! Woe to a world that harvests wisdom in all the wrong places!