What Little I've Learned

"Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise."
Shakespeare

'Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn.'
CS Lewis

"You can't fix stupid."
Ron White

I've getting more and more wrinkles. When exactly will I become wise? When will I learn from all these harsh experiences that make up my existence? What does wisdom look like, what does it feel like? I don't even know where to look for it. The more I learn, the more unanswerable questions I ask. So is that wisdom; the recognition that I will never have the answers?

Or is this simply the proof that I'm insolvably stupid?

I found a very wise man's blog, Sid Parham at http://oldbeforewise.com/. This particular post moved me to tears. He spoke about how a recent exchange sparked some old memories:

"I remembered people I hadn’t thought about in years and wondered what had happened to them, but not enough to google them and find out. I remember the brash, confident, and fairly foolish young man I had been with more fondness than chagrin. But mostly I marveled at how memory can serve up images that seem really fresh, even though I know they are over 40 years old. I regret nothing I have done, but know that too many of my days have not rendered up images that will sustain me. I was happy to discover this one still does."

So, how do you fill your life with images that sustain you? Do you follow Eleanor Roosevelt's advice:

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
Eleanor Roosevelt

By taking risks do you gain sustenance? Or are you sustained by duty, doing what must be done regardless of whether it's convenient or attractive?

"True happiness is to understand our duties toward God and man; to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence on the future; not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient."
Seneca

He's right. I'm not satisfied with what I have. I am a spoiled child yearning for the newest, shiniest toy that the other kid has. But when I think about my days fulfilling duty, I don't feel particularly sustained. I don't feel regret, but I don't feel any great sense of triumph or accomplishment. My favorite snapshots of my life come from the riskiest moments- hanging myself way out on a limb, vulnerable from all angles. Sometimes the risk did not pay off. But at least I found out.

When do I get to have a few answers in my life? Is that what heaven is; when God sits you down and explains it all to you slowly and patiently? Each of your life's experiences are shown to you in a slideshow and you finally see how they fit tightly together like a Cohen Brothers' film. One experience loses its meaning without being viewed along with the rest.

Maybe. But I'm too stupid right now to know.