“Getting old is not for the faint-hearted!” Sybil used to say.
How true is that?!
As a parent when your children do not ask you for advice any longer but instead are offering advice to you, that is when you notice you have grown old enough to be on the way out.
“On the way out” – is probably the wrong expression unless you are really debilitated.
“On the way out” should rather mean “out of the way of the grown-ups”.
In other words, it is a good thing, that the one generation gives way to the next.
So – what do we do then with growing old?
It is our chance to acquire wisdom.
Ha! – Wisdom! Where do you find wisdom!
Wisdom is a colouration.
A change of colour of your mind.
A change of speed and change in reach and in release of anger.
You are no longer on the crest.
Fools only would keep on striving until their eventual collapse.
Wisdom is a state of mind the young ones cannot afford.
Do you think I want to be called stupid?
No, of course not. You are young.
To be young means to have the doors of history flung open wide.
To grow older means preventing doors from rattling in the wind.
Betty’s Bay, Saturday 30 April 2011
With love
Colleen & Walter
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