Back Off, Dad
Feb. 17th, 2013 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI had to deal with a silly young fool last night. I was getting angry because I so disapproved of what they are doing. (what they're doing isn't wicked, only foolish.) Then I realized I was turning into my father and put the brake down hard.
Things the old should always bear in mind.
1. The young (unlike their elderly selves) do not desire a quiet life.
2. In the unimproveable words of William Blake, "If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."
3, Nobody pays any attention to a moralizing greybeard anyway.
If I had lived my life along lines my father had approved I would have been- by now- a very twisted, unhappy, bitter old man. I did some very risky things in my youth and middle-age and I'm "no deid yet". Sometimes my memory fails me and I talk as if I was always the cautious, world-weary old creature I am now. And I wasn't. Youth is for making mistakes in and falling over and getting up again. This is how we learn- by taking knocks while we're still resilient. The old- who have done all these things themselves (or should have done)- need only offer a helping hand and a measure of understanding. If they feel the need to salt this with advice they should keep it brief and not take it personally when they're ignored.
Things the old should always bear in mind.
1. The young (unlike their elderly selves) do not desire a quiet life.
2. In the unimproveable words of William Blake, "If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."
3, Nobody pays any attention to a moralizing greybeard anyway.
If I had lived my life along lines my father had approved I would have been- by now- a very twisted, unhappy, bitter old man. I did some very risky things in my youth and middle-age and I'm "no deid yet". Sometimes my memory fails me and I talk as if I was always the cautious, world-weary old creature I am now. And I wasn't. Youth is for making mistakes in and falling over and getting up again. This is how we learn- by taking knocks while we're still resilient. The old- who have done all these things themselves (or should have done)- need only offer a helping hand and a measure of understanding. If they feel the need to salt this with advice they should keep it brief and not take it personally when they're ignored.
