Eyes Open

I remember an old comedy show that featured fake debates – one serious contender against a comedian…except the contender didn’t know it was a comedian. They thought they were debating someone serious. On one of the shows I saw, at the height of argument, the comedian asked, “How old are you?” to which his “opponent” replied “23.” “Well, I’m 35. Have you ever been 35 before? Cuz I’ve been 23.”

I know us old geezers have something to offer, but what? We don’t know a thing about being young in 2023, and we barely remember being young in 1983. Even then, it’s only gonna be the good parts, right?

But yeah, there’s something there. Sometimes it just has to come with a boatload of humility. We’ve got to remember that, while we’ve been through “growing up,” we never grew up with Facebook. Or phones that weren’t screwed to a wall for that matter. But still.

I think one of the keys to wisdom is understanding that, at any given time (including in one’s later years), a person doesn’t know what they don’t know. There’s a sea of knowledge and experience out there of which we are all ignorant. But we conquer pieces of that sea as we get older. We gain points of reference, so we can say things like, “Hey, we tried something like this back in 2002 and it didn’t work because….” That kind of stuff. Without it, the next group to come along might have to learn the same mistakes all over again. Because they didn’t know that they didn’t know. But someone does.

So maybe that’s what we oldsters can offer. Not to sit there and say “Back in the old days…” –I’ve heard enough young people who absolutely hate hearing that to know better.  But we can only hope they won’t mind hearing “I’ve been through this before, and here’s why it won’t work.” Sure. Go ahead and try it again. I know some people get their hearts set on doing the wrong thing. But at least they should do it with their eyes open.