Everyone believes that age begets wisdom.
Of course they do. Adult parents raise children, older teachers teach younger students, older kids babysit younger kids, and so on and so forth.
I’ve had many, many adults (predominantly Indian aunties) talk about how this is a universal undeniable truth.
It’s a bunch of b.s.
Age does not beget wisdom.
What age begets is experience. And then someone will say, well, doesn’t experience in turn beget wisdom and as such isn’t there an indirect relationship of causation between age and wisdom?
And the answer is no.
Because experience doesn’t beget wisdom either.
Yes, experience is a necessary catalyst, but it’s not the main factor.
Being wise is being able to learn from one’s experiences. A quality that many truly lack. Being wise is able to dissect the many experiences of one’s life and decipher what it all means or if there really is any meaning. There aren’t many I would call truly wise across history. Old? Yes. Experienced? Definitely. But not wise.
I mean, what do we call that one person who makes the same mistake a thousand times over expecting different results? Obviously, they have experience. A lot of it. But what are they learning from it? Nothing useful.
And then, there’s this: the truly wise are those who understand that they don’t know everything about everything, never will, and are not capable of telling everyone else how to live their lives.
Just for this, every person who makes statements like “Mother knows best” and “Always listen to your elders” are morons. Mothers and fathers and parents in general don’t always know best. And the wisest of parents will admit that. And elders definitely don’t know everything about everything and know that while they do know a lot, sometimes theirs is not always the best advice. And you shouldn’t always listen to them. And of course, the recognition of this is not common.
One of my favorite examples of this phenomenon is how parents who have never dated in their lives or know next to nothing about it try to give their children dating unasked-for advice. It’s ridiculous.
Or what about that family friend in a STEM career who knows absolutely nothing about writing that tells you you should learn a more sophisticated vocabulary whereas the majority of contemporary writers will tell you if your audience doesn’t understand what you’re saying, unless that’s the desired outcome, you’re failing at your job. That simple is better. And of course, this family friend is confusing linguistics and memorizing the dictionary for creative writing.
It’s important that we learn from those who came before us or those who lived longer. Their experiences to have a lot of knowledge to offer us. But the real wisdom lies with the one who learns and processes this info soundly. Not the one who prances around and tells the world about all their experiences. Those who have lived and who talk about their life are only wise when they psychoanalyze themselves and their situations and understand that while they are encouraged to share, that the world is entitled to live differently, and that every person has a different set of experiences. And the truly wise will make use of this.
