Dad

Well fuck me, at 79 years of age my dad has finally uttered an opinion betraying deep thought.

He suggested that in the old days the reason why elders were revered for their wisdom is that they weren’t very old. He told me that 50 was old in the pre-industrial societies and at 50 you still have all your mental faculties (implying that this isn’t the case at 79).

I added the thought that in a society, sans change, age equated to increased accumulation of current knowledge. Whereas in our society of constant change getting old signals redundancy for old knowledge. And it also gets harder to adapt to change as one gets older. Double whammy.

Agreement all around. And then we retired for his half-full skim-milk extra-hot half-sugar latte and my double mac.