The backs of those in front

I'm not looking over my shoulder at those behind; rather it's those ahead my eyes are fixed on. My question to you who are ten, twenty, thirty, thirty five years ahead of me is, "What do you see from where you are that I can only guess by looking at how you shift your gait to meet it?'

Being the age I am, I can say confidently I've reached some conclusions I trust to carry me through. But the road ahead can be long and I know well the indulgence with which I consider the ideas I held in my forties, thirties, twenties. Not bad, I think; not wrong, good enough for then...

So, you who are far ahead of me, or just a little in front, what do you know that would change the significance of what I think I know?  I see you on the train, on the street, and put myself--in my condition now--in your place. 'Don't you know this is possible, and that?' But really what do I know of the good, beautiful or possible as experienced by my elders?

Probably at any age ahead of me, you are each sometimes asking the same questions. The view which is beyond your horizon but not beyond that of those further along may suggest to any of you a conditionality inherent in your conclusions about the way things really are.

Part of the beautiful arrogance of the young (at least when I was one) is the way they know how invalid any insights that prior generations may have deemed fundamental, given. 'What do they know?'

Setting out to climb a mountain, I'm not daunted by distances and elevations; steady exertion will take me far and high, I'm confident. As I travel onward, I only loosen up; the mountain and I seem a match. Coming down, my goal to stand on the summit attained, my legs wobble as they step down from stone to stone. I look back, in a kind of amazement: Did I climb that? Where did I find the energy or courage?  So, do the reflections of the end of the day invalidate those of the morning?

Instead, it may be that our primary impression at any point is being where we are, no matter what's behind or ahead. If we have the energy and there's the challenge, well, we're in one experience; if the challenge is behind us and reserves depleted, we're in a different experience space.

The grandfather of a friend of mine, a retired doctor in his eighties, newly widowed, is leaving his familiar Midwestern haunts and driving to Boston, and then taking his granddaughter with him for a vacation in Mexico. Perhaps what he sees looming warns him: Do it now. Maybe he's wanted to for a while, or not even dared to dream of doing, and so when occasion presents itself, he's ready. Perhaps he's still just living in that space of warnings, longings and opportunities which may be our experience every moment of our lives, even to the end.

Aphorisms, those chunks of distilled practical insight, taken in bulk cancel each other out, but can be perfectly on target in their characterization of particular moments. Maybe there's a wisdom for each age, including the one I'm at now. You ahead, you've been here; can you help me find mine and ours, without making it yours? You can say, 'If I were 65 again, I'd...'  And I'd say, 'You, gramps, enjoy your road trip as if you were 65.'