I’m not going to lie. When I was a younger man, it bothered me a great deal that older folks would assume I was clueless; and to be honest, there’s some reason to feel that way.

Now that I’m older though, I more readily understand their “logical train.”

I vaguely remember being five or six years old, standing outside on a sunny day in Slidell, Louisiana, with little to no clue what was going on around me. I imagine many can relate.

At that tender age, you’ve barely had enough time to have commenced experiencing the World—much less even begun the process of understanding it. How could anybody expect you to make intelligent decisions on much of anything when you’re in that state?

Jumping ahead just a couple of years, I remember moving to Australia. I can’t speak for my parents, or my siblings. For me, I equate it to landing on the Moon. Even though much was the same, there were sufficient differences to make it more or less entirely foreign (as one might expect) to my still-developing gray matter.

Leaping ahead another decade, I found myself in military service, where I met one of my oldest friends. His wife—a kindly Korean lady—counted herself a “matchmaker.”

Without any real understanding of what I was doing, I “allowed myself” to be “paired with” a young woman who’d been raised in the Republic of Korea.

Neither of us was ready for what transpired as a result.

I can’t speak to her responses and reactions, but I can tell you with surety, mine were generally not good. As much as I decry the failure of that coupling, I recognize I was foolish and arrogant when I was in it.

Am I absolving the “other half” of wrongdoing or other acts of impropriety? Not at all. Though that’s true, it’s not my intent to “heap upon her” any charges. Nor do I see it reasonable to argue I should be the one to tell her what she “did wrong,” or how she ought to “atone” for her “error.”

What’s the old expression? “Lather, rinse, repeat?”

The point here is, the “pattern” continued—and one might argue, still does.

Four times! Four times, I tried to “get the marital relationship right.” Regardless the missteps, trip-ups and other failures on the part of the others involved, you’d be entirely correct in assuming I was a part of the brokenness in each and every case.

So far, we’ve only discussed familial relations.

I could talk of careers (such as they’ve been), living situations, avocations, and myriad other (often far more “microscopic”) experiences, but I hope you get the point.

What’s my “main thrust” in saying what I have to this juncture? I’ve moved forward in fits and starts. I’ve had failures, I’ve succeeded, and in some instances, maybe neither, or both, can be said.

There’s a reason I bring all of this up, of course. Once upon a proverbial time, I was young (believe it or not), inexperienced, and as a result, unwise.

This isn’t a reality that applies to me alone, as you likely already realize. Rather, it’s pretty much the “norm.”

It’s fair to say some gain gems quickly, while others? Not so much!

If I had to guess, I would say I’m somewhere in the middle, probably closer to the not-so-quick side.

There are certainly other considerations. Some learn quickly, but forget what they’ve internalized with equal rapidity. Some have a “dawning light” that sticks with them for a very long time.

As you might imagine, the possible combinations are virtually limitless.

For my part, I like to think that, where my “processor” isn’t so swift, my long term memory is maybe even exceptionally good to this point.

In short, it may take me a while to catch on, but once I do, chances are good I’ll learn the lesson well, and remember what I’ve been taught.

I like to think it’s become easier to accumulate knowledge as I’ve grown older, but in certain ways, I’m pretty sure the reverse is more true than I’d like to admit.

Here’s the thing I’d like to impart above all others in this little missive. I can’t say it’s always the case (perhaps there are “sports”), but most people are not born with wisdom.

We try, we fail, but often, we ultimately come to a sufficient understanding to achieve some measure of success.

Maybe more importantly, we become ever stronger in our ability to identify why and how we manage to overcome, to surmount.

I want to be quite plain here. Part of what I’m saying is, “If you’re young, and particularly if you’re inexperienced, you generally can not be wise on any serious level.”

I’m not blaming anybody for that, just stating what I see as a truth.

Put another way, if you want to know why older folks count the young “stupid” (definitely the wrong word for what’s actually the case), look to the fact that we old gits were all young-lings once ourselves.

We remember doing bone-headed things to which we should never have set ourselves.

Not unsurprisingly, we expect people not yet versed in the ways of the World to do likewise.

Perhaps you’ll manage to escape the foolish meanderings in which we mired ourselves. Even so, I’m betting you’ll find your own folly (just as many of us did).

In the end, the message can be summed up thus. In the mind of the elderly, it is not some fault of the young that they lack experience, and the resultant understanding. We’ve lived there too (some pf us for far too long). That said, we want you young folks to “get that” it’s been a long slog for us to come to the point where we dug for, and collected, those nuggets of preciousness.

Don’t despair! Your day is coming. Sooner than you realize, you too will be “old.” The hope is, along with your decrepitness, will come a level of comprehension that eludes “babies.”

As is my custom, I wish you, and those about whom you care, wellness and happiness. Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.