Young people sometimes have this notion that the information we know is obsolete. In some ways, they are absolutely correct. We elders have a similar notion: What the hell are these young people doing? I wonder if their mama knows they’re out here showing out?
Both generations aren’t looking at the whole picture.
Recently, I discussed those pearls of wisdom I call “jewels” in an essay entitled Dropping Jewels. Today, however, I’m thinking about something slightly different: passing along a single message that encompasses scores of triumphs, follies, and seemingly useless facts gathered over a lifetime.
That seems daunting.
How do you reduce all those years to a few words without allowing hindsight to rewrite the story? How do you acknowledge the victories without polishing them, admit the follies without condemning the fool who committed them, and recognize that some of those seemingly useless facts simply haven’t found their moment yet?
We do this in the hope that we can remain objective and tell the truth of the matter, minus our ego.
This, too, is daunting.
Perhaps that is why the message itself must be simple:
Nothing is irrelevant. Everything has its time and place, if you exercise patience and restraint.
Some of what I knew when I was young became obsolete. Some of what I dismissed became indispensable. Some things waited decades before circumstances finally revealed why I had carried them so long. The value wasn’t always in knowing. Sometimes, it was in waiting.
The younger me probably wouldn’t understand that.
He wouldn’t need to.
The message contains all it must, but no more.
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Memoirs of Madness 
“To everything there is a season…? Perhaps that’s why they exist…we obtain what we need at the time in the moment…sometimes reflect and arrive at the necessary important information early… The younger version may have been impatient, eager, hungry and the waiting was a lesson in and of itself. Loved this piece. Some of us were born with old souls…didn’t fit into the time frame and had to cope because a seven year old with the knowledge of an ancient mariner doesn’t quite work. Perhaps never…since many don’t want to learn from your experiences but rather trudge through the mud as if breaking new ground never before trod….fascinating. Loved this
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