Old People and Wisdom

I was browsing the book shelves at a midtown hot spot last weekend with my sexy girlfriend. And as she was checking out the devotionals, I peered through the "wisdom" section (which was nothing more than a bunch of books scattered across an ordinary table, in plain view of the front door of the bookstore. There was a small, unassuming sign perched in the middle of the table that read "Books on Wisdom. 20% off.") I chuckled. "Now's the time to gain some," the cheap-ass side of me spoke out loud, with no one to hear. Sometimes, I do that. Say sarcastic things in solitude. It's thinking out loud. It's a subconscious deal, I'm sure. Because I don't plan those things. They just happen. And thinking back on those times, when I catch myself in a zone so deep that I speak to myself, audibly...well I smile.

I chuckle just thinking about how random and odd I am. And how easily I am amused. But also. There's something else that's not quite as funny. Knowing just how easily I am distracted. Figuring that I have myself pegged, I sit here typing, well aware that the very same creative processes that drive my after-work personality to the arts, music, and to writing random blogs, stories (woven with harmless white lies and over-the-top plots)...the same creative process is also suspect to an ever thirsty heart, that more often than not will fall for just about anything interesting.

Let me explain. As I browsed over the books on the "Wisdom Shelf," I noticed one called something like "What Old People Know." On it's cover was a wrinkle dog (otherwise known by the people who know dogs as a sharpe). It looked like the dog version of Benjamin Button. Curious. Sophisticated, in it's own exotically wrinkled way. Since my overly sexy gf was still browsing through book titles, I thought I would check this book out for myself. You know, give it the ole sniff test. Pick it up. Thumb through for pictures. Read the inner sleeve. Check out the table of contents. And yes. Yes. Put my nose up to the pages and thumb through. Each book has its own unique smell. And by saying that, I know I'm admitting to some twisted-ness. To something crazy about myself. Something neurotic. But it's true. I hold nothing back here. Me. Vulnerable. Yes.

Old people. Wisdom. What is right will often be held in the minds of those who have experienced life much longer than the one who has not. What works is the idea gained by trying all the things that do not work. Experience leads old people towards wisdom. It is the act of living that provides them with knowledge. Life. What is it? How beautiful. How precious are old people?

But at the same time, how sad is it that we in America, chose to retire our old people to places that soak and spill into stagnant ponds? Our collective consciousness, to steal from Jung, is collectively living itself out of life...dealing cards, nestled away in a breathe-taking apartment view in the mild climates of the United States. They have been "taken care of." But do they truly, really matter to us?

I don't know many old people anymore and that makes me sad. I used to hang out with my granny before she passed away a few years ago. We would talk about her time during the war, working at the barracks, waiting for the time when Grandpa would return from the war. Dating here and there. Because she wasn't just gonna be bored. She had to live her life too.

And now, I'm romanticizing about those moments through an inanimate object. Indeed, it's funny how the title of a book can stir up emotions and thoughts that have been dormantly laying in the heart.

I am tugged. I am pulled. I am saddened. And I am moved to get to know more old people. And not to buy that book. I refuse to learn about it through the pages of someone else who has gone there before me. I refrain from second-hand knowledge.

And as I sit and type this out, recollecting that moment in my mind, I am suddenly aware, once again, how easily my heart can be called up from memory or a feeling or a smell and jump headlong into something...something innocent. And be open. And vulnerable to being crushed. Saddened.

Makes me wonder just what else today I've given my heart over to, for the sake of the memory, nostalgia, or my idea of what life would be like in a perfect world. Ya know, I've never been a great fan of the Beetles. I think they're slightly overrated. But I realize, there is a great portion of today's society, and an even greater portion of yesterday's world, that would argue likewise. And I'm reminded of John Lennon's song "Imagine." It goes something like this...

"...Imagine there's no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will live as one"

Somewhere, in the day to day cycle of life, I have become like the utopian values of Lennon...where I would rather focus on the perfect possibility of life, hand over my heart to what could be. Toss it to an idea. Without any universal quality. No tangible meaning to back it. Hoping on hope. Like a man dangling from a string, tied to a limb, stuck out from the edge of a deadly cliff.

I am Sean's under-lived and overly struggling heart. And what really shocks me the most, is that most of the time, I do not realize just how many things, how many ideas that are based in no sense of reality, that I hand my heart over.

It seems as though, as long as it can entertain me, I'll hand it out. Could be a ball game. A possible sale at work. A certain way Alison looks at me. A line in a movie. The sweet smell of something cooking. Anything. A close parking spot!

And with all these things that fill the moment...how many actually provide satisfaction? And in the moment, as the saying goes, the moment is gone. And then we're left with millions and millions of people holding out hope that Obama will change the world. Hope for hope's sake. How dangerous is it, to place our trust in an individual, an idea, or a thing?

How many times will I have to get my heart broken by the temporal to realize the only thing that lasts and the only thing that will quench my thirst is the love of the Father?

It's a mental thing. When he says "come to me. for I can give you rest," I come. But many times during the day, I'm not hearing him speak. And so, instead of walking into that place of comfort and knowing it to be what it is, based on my past experiences with His love, I chose the more common and quickly digested pick-me-ups...

like a book on how to find wisdom from old people.

Father, forgive me.