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With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone. – Oscar Wilde
As I get older, I seem to grow wiser. I let things pass that would have put me out of joint when I was a younger age. I have learned it often is not worth making a fuss. Making a fuss is often counterproductive.
Part of the reason I feel I have grown wiser with age is that when confronted with a dichotomy or a dilemma, I start with the assumption that my initial impulse is wrong and force myself to prove it is right before proceeding. It takes a little extra time, but generally, you have the time to think before you act. (Another thing I have learned as I have aged: you always have time to think before acting.) That one simple step of thinking has saved me much trouble in my later years.
Then there are those that simply get older. Take Joe Biden. Please. He has never been known for his perspicacity, even when younger. Nearly ten years ago, Robert Gates observed of Biden, "I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Nearly a decade has passed since Gates said that in 2017, Biden now is nearly up to a half-century of being wrong. One can at least admire the consistency.
So are we surprised that an unwise man makes unwise decisions and unwise statements at the end of his presidency? Things like pardoning thousands of criminals (including sex offenders and violent thugs)? Or that he thinks he can unilaterally change the Constitution by declaration? I am not. Nor should you be. It just shows that Oscar Wilde was right. Sometimes age comes alone.
Discussion (24)
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I felt that I had grown wiser with age. When I was 18 years old or so. I knew everything then.
Now that I'm in my 50's, I feel that I'm clearly moving backwards. Age is not only not bringing wisdom to me - it is bringing less certainty and more confusion. Not what I expected.
Unless uncertainty is just another definition of wisdom.
Maybe that's what I didn't expect.
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And never let Xi pick the president again. Ever.
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I'm still waiting for that "veneration of your elders" thing to kick in.
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Fortunately for me uncertainty has been the basis of my adult life. I spent 20 years as a space navigator. The thing about space navigation is that you never quite know where you are and where you are going. There are simply too many factors in play. You cannot eliminate uncertainty. Instead, space navigation is the art of reducing that uncertainty to a tolerable level. Once you are there, that is your solution. Which you have to redo once the uncertainty grows to an intolerable level.
It works in most aspects of life. I reduce the uncertainty to what Ican live with, and go from there. I do not try to achieve absolute certainty.
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You will grow old waiting for that to happen.
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