When you attain a certain age, you think you know things.

For most of us, that age is 10.

Or, certainly, 13-21. At those ages, we all know everything. Until learning as our 20s and absolutely our 30s roll along, that we don’t know the half of what we don’t know. And, worse:  It starts to look like our parents were right about things.

Truly awful.

Some time after that, a new age dawns, one in which we actually do know some things. When we actually have attained some wisdom. Our hair is falling out, our ability to recall people’s names is shot, it’s a struggle to roll out of bed let alone bench press a bikini-clad girl on the beach, and there is never again any desire to party hardy, or, if there is, there is a public fumble of what that play looks like. I say this having witnessed Hugh Hefner more than once late in his life out in public in his formerly grand style. He was mostly propelled by his bodyguards and his three blonde girlfriends, before dozing away in his seat.

While I’m not yet in my dotage — not by a long shot, you hear me! — I do think I’ve reached a period of wisdom. Or at least, I like to think so. And I choose to believe people who tell me I have. If I seem eager to claim it, and you’re not yet at this stage of life, at some point, you’ll understand.

What prompted this was a video call I had with a friend the other day. We serve together on a nonprofit board, and I passed along a general observation, and he said, “Wait, I’m writing that down.” This was the second time he’d done this recently. He’s about 15 years younger than me, so this exchange fits the pattern:  Not only can he recognize wisdom, he can appreciate it.

So then I thought, I should write down some of these pearls of wisdom rather than just let them clatter onto the floor unstrung, rolling around and slipping away. I’m going to start doing that here on this blog. This, here, that you’re reading? This is just the setup. The intro. Think of it as the introduction to a book I’ll almost assuredly never write, having so far, for over five decades, written none of them.

I may even swipe one or two pearls of wisdom from other people I know — but always with attribution. Well, mostly with attribution. We’ll see how it goes.

While we can’t all have a Boswell, if you think I’ve said something witty and incisive, I wish you’d please let me know. Because I’ve just embarked on this voyage, and as I’m writing this, I have to say that I can think of only two observations I’ve made, and one of them actually came from my mother, who was shrewdly observant. I guess, then, that I have just one, one bit of wisdom to share in the coming days. Which will make this a very short series indeed.

You see why I’m really counting on you.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2025 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.