Passing On (Advice)

You know you're getting old when you start dispensing advice to those younger than you, and I accept the adjective. I'm old. I wobble some, but I still think. And while I can, I regret that I must inform you that you get to be subject to my “wisdom,” if you choose to be. So I'll tell you how I've lived my life – and it's worked out pretty well. Perhaps some of my personal rules (“my” is an overstatement since they're hardly original, but they worked for me) will resonate with you.

1. Hope for the best. I'm optimistic by nature. Pessimism doesn't improve anything. It just makes you worry about it.
2. Prepare for the worst. For many of us the worst isn't so bad. I'm far better off than most of the world's people but I know there are going to be problems. There are always problems, and only you can guess what they might be. So, as the Boy Scouts say, “Be Prepared.” (For the Coast Guard it's “Semper Paratus.”)
3. Play the hand you're dealt. It is what it is. Fix it if necessary and if you're able, but you can't hide from a situation just because you don't like it. Deal with it. It's not only about you, so it's important to react to what's happening around you. Do something. Remember that things are only inevitable if you don't change them.
4. Plan for the future, but act in the present. The past is informative so you should use it. But don't let it paralyze you. Act when you must act. Never confuse what you want with reality.
5. Trust small, but verify large. The promises of others aren't always kept.
6. Do everything you can for others (and that includes cheering them up)– as soon as you can – but,
7. For better or worse, family comes first.
8. Honor your obligations, whether a promise or a note on the calendar. (Remember that appointments are promises, and schedules should be respected and followed.) Your word should be your bond.
9. Remember that others may not be as reliable as you. Cut them some slack.
10. Never give up.

“Pablum.”

Admit it. That's what you're thinking. (Cover your mouth when you yawn.)

And that's what I would have thought when I was young. A lot of sentimental advice of an old man. And it is. But that doesn't invalidate it. You may not agree with it all and you may not follow it, but it's worth considering. As time has gone by I've realized that life is not simply a series of isolated experiences that you can finesse but a sequence of challenges that all bear on each other, and which, with a reasonable amount of thought and preparation, you'll find a consistent and effective way you can meet.

There's more that I wanted to say, but I can't remember what it is. Which brings me to a final bit of advice. It's hardly new, but it's very effective. I learned it from my father. He didn't consciously teach it to me, but it was easy to see what he was doing. In his shirt pocket he had a stack of index cards which contained lists of what needed to be done. Nowadays all those things would be listed on some sort of battery-operated pocket device. I'm sure there's an app for it. But I'm a troglodyte and I scorn such devices. I still use paper and a pen. The older I get the more I forget. I still remember, however, how to write, while I have doubts whether I'd be able to learn enough about the “smartphones” and their equivalents to make them worth both the expense and my time.

In any case, however, I've presented a few rules by which I live. Perhaps they're of interest to you. Perhaps not. I suggest that it might be of value to you to give some thought to how you might conduct your own affairs in a manner that will reflect reasonably well on you at a time when you're too old to make significant changes. We don't live forever. There are no do-overs, so we might as well get it right the first time.

Enjoy.

May 22, 2017

Wine And Cheese

According to the second law of thermodynamics, as time goes by things deteriorate. It has to do with “entropy” – the concept that tells us that there is a steady increase in randomness everywhere. It's all downhill. Everything changes for the worse.

Well, almost everything. An aged cheese or an old vintage may have improved with age (though we may argue about whether this means that the old is better or indicates that we should focus on the value of change through the years). I certainly have. As the years have gone by I've changed for the better. You, too, probably. Looks like it's time to reevaluate. Since it's my blog I'll use myself as the subject of the evaluation. I'm doing the typing and I can do anything I want. I'm sure you'll have no trouble with that.

There is a comment attributed to Winston Churchill (though he probably adapted it from someone else) that says

If you're not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35 you have no brain.

With experience and exposure to the world as it is rather than as we'd like it to be, liberals become more conservative. From Churchill's point of view this would have represented a change for the better. Even more basic, it demonstrated a belief that change is possible. That, however, is disputed.

The more things change the more they remain the same.

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr gets credit for that one. What we're left with, however, is a salmagundi of ideas: entropy and deterioration, things change and can change for the better, and nothing changes. And, in some way or other, they're all right. (You're right, too.)

When I was young (not that I view myself now as old) I was a liberal. Most of us were. Churchill would have predicted it. We were open to the important ideas of the time and we were aware of what was going on around us. But though over the centuries the lot of human beings had improved, we could see only the ills. It was a world in which there many inequities, and we knew how to fix them. We were idealists. We subscribed to the principle that we shouldn't just stand there, we should do something. So we elected those with proposals to solve the problems quickly and improve the lots of the less fortunate. They were people of action – idealists like us. Perhaps they were over 25, but they had hearts. And neither they, nor we, paid much attention to randomness. We were focused. We had purpose.

Well, I'm still focused. I still have purpose. As do so many of my generation and those who preceded us. We have remained the same. I'm still an idealist, and, in that sense, a liberal. Yet I no longer believe in liberalism. At least not in the liberalism practiced today. Perhaps I have not changed, but my ideas have. (And so, for that matter, have the precepts that govern the liberalism of today.)

I used to believe that no one changes after the age of about twelve. What you see is what you get. Over time I revised the age down to nine. Then to six. Then to four. But now I realize that while I may have been correct, I was evaluating personalities, not ideas. And while people and their personalities don't change, their ideas do. That's what learning is.

I haven't changed, but my political philosophy has. And that's because I'm still open and aware. I've been battered by reality. And what I've seen over the years has been the failure of too many idealistic notions and plans because proponents were more interested in acting than thinking. They wanted to change the future without any consideration of the past or present. So previously tried approaches were repeated without the knowledge of their existence; and if they knew of the earlier failures they simply “tweaked” their plans rather than looked for a more promising approach. That would have slowed them down. Little attention was paid to possible consequences apart from what was intended. “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”

There is nothing new under the sun. But there is little interest in the classroom in learning history. Because we don't learn from the past, however, we have no opportunity to understand it. But that's okay. Who cares? There was a time when most societies revered age. With age came wisdom. The Elders were the Sages. But those days are past. Now, like teen-agers, the young know more than their parents, and the arguments of the experienced are dismissed. We're wiser than our country's founders and all of those before us.

And our new technology has given us the ability to perform faster and better than in the past. Why learn how to multiply if a calculator can do it for you; why learn to read a clock if the genie in your 'cell 'phone will tell you the time? But we're sacrificing the abilities we once had for the shortcuts and ignorance that science can provide for us.

(Before concluding the rant, however, I must acknowledge that some things are better “young” than old; when the current is superior to the outdated. For example, fresh bread tastes better than a stale, moldy loaf. And mathematicians, develop early, while their colleagues in the humanities improve with age, assuming, however, that entropy, in the form of physical and mental deterioration don't take too much of a toll.

And there are instances when the new is better than the old. Believe it or not, antibiotics are more effective against pneumonia than leeches. But I have to admit that I prefer a Gregorian Chant to hip hop.)

Ah. Aged cheese on fresh, crisp bread. With an old vintage wine. And a Gregorian Chant playing in the background. More old than new, though parts have improved over time. Perhaps that's a philosophic as well as a culinary approach. Or revealing about my politics. But it works for me.

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Please note that since I'm writing these long in advance I've decided to date them.
September 18, 2016