"Age clarifies," begins John Lachs in his just-published Stoic Pragmatism. Clarity is a wonderful gift, but so is youthful indeterminacy. So many still-untested hypotheses, so many experiments yet to try, so much fun on the horizon.
The spirit of youth is indefatigable "can do" energy and enthusiasm. Age is more realistic, having tried and succeeded and failed at so much more. The two, age and youth, have things to tell one another. Too bad each tends to think it already knows it all. "I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors," snarled young Henry Thoreau. Kids these days, they rejoined. We rejoin. Why don't you pick up your room?! (And then, as Ron Padgett reminds, then save the world.)
I certainly don't dispute the practical wisdom of stoic pragmatists who know, with Lachs, that "there's nothing infinite about us." But I still envy the young their intrepdity, from which I daily draw practically-infinite encouragement and inspiration. They remind me of my own misplaced sense of sky-high possibility.
Henry's whole statement on this matter, so delightfully and so youthfully over the top:
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new... Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about. -Thoreau, Walden
Yes, Thoureau's youthful impudence is WAY over the top. I began hearing valuable, earnest advice from my mentor John Lachs before I was thirty and I'm still hearing it. Some of it has finally registered. I'll pass it along to my Intro students in the Fall. If they read carefully, they'll hear much more than a cautionary warning not to repeat the hubris of Ozymandias.
True enough, from dust we arose and to dust we'll return. But within those natural boundaries there's plenty of room to roam, and so many ways to find our personal, familial, communal, and social delights, to be good (or "good enough," as Lachs likes to say) and to be happy. How to do it, and how to allow others the respectful autonomy to do it too, is a conversation for all ages.
Phil Oliver
Nashville, TN
$2.99 with 83 percent savings
Digital List Price: $17.99 
The Digital List Price is the suggested price provided by the publisher for the eBook format.
Learn more
Learn more
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Shop this series
See full series- Kindle Price:$198.83By placing your order, you're purchasing a license to the content and you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use.
Shop this series
There are 39 books in this series.
Kindle Price:
$198.83
By placing your order, you're purchasing a license to the content and you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2012
