Sagacity

No fool like an old fool. Older is wiser. Both these adages apply. Where do we find the middle path in looking to elders for wisdom and advice? It is a difficult call. When I see men like James Baker, former Secretary of the Treasury/State and Right Wing hatchet man, being lauded as wise because he has been around power for a long time, I shudder. George Bush the Elder, reviled in 1992 as a failed President, is now gaining the dusty frost of aged respectability. The wealthy and rich, in my experience, are seldom wise. Their wealth and the habits they have developed to keep it tend to stunt their life experience. They are insulated, spoiled and rather rigid in their perspective. The aged poor, those who have struggled for survival throughout their lives, are also limited by their poverty. Their wisdom tends to be tainted by their habit of grabbing onto whatever they do have and never letting go. The middle path seems to lie in the direction of those who have known a fair share of success, security, failure and insecurity. True wisdom is based in some education, as well as experience. And, it seems to me the most foolish of paths to accept sagacity in anyone without questioning it continually.