Suddenly I raise a question: Do the elder know more than do the younger? I think in terms of life-long experience, the elder know more things than the younger do. Because the elder was born earlier and learn and experience more things than the younger. However sometimes the elder know less things than the younger. For instance the elder don't know more things about what is going around: the recent fashion, music and books. In terms of what is now in the air, the elder know less than the younger. The younger are thought to respond more quickly to what is now happening and paid much attention to.
I am now 25 years old and know more things than do the present high school students of 15 ~ 18 years old. For example more English words and business jargons do I know than them. However I don't know more things about the recent culture of high school students. I don't know what they are thinking about, listening to, reading, writing, and anyway how they are living a life.
When I was a high school student, then the elder(of course, now the elder to me) did know more things about the real society and business and didn't know more things about our lives and ideas. I was at least more responsive and thus vulnerable to what was then happening. Things happened in front of me seemed to be fresh and vivid. As I get elder, I can learn more from some elders around me and come to know more things: how I look for a part-time job, what I have to do at my workplace and how I talk to the elder people. And as I get to know more, I become less responsive to and less impressed by how the world is working. I suppose that it is because I think that I learn and know more things.
Generally the younger people are said to know less things about the social manners and rules. Certainly they don't know about those things, but I don't think so. In fact, some of them are really polite and know better. They seem to be more enthusiastic than the elder and they know more about what impression is like. As they get older, they usually forget being impressed and being vulnerable. One day, I met and talked with an elder woman and she told me that a man of 20 years old whom she had talked to seemed a living creature from outer space to her: From her viewpoint, she can't understand what the young is saying and doing.
However she had a day of youth. As she gets elder, she gradually forgets what she was then like, I think. She and I can't be more impressed than we used to be. Being moved is the privilege that the young have and is the proof of immaturity. Impression is very important and necessary for us to grow up and to learn many things.
To return to our first question, do the elder know more than do the younger? The elder know more things about what they should do in our society but less about what and how they should feel in our life. They are less responsive and less likely to learn more things about what is going around. They believe that they know more. In contrast, the younger know less things about the social manner and rule but more about how they feel what is going on in our present life. They want to be an adult earlier and to know more. It is sure that neither the elder nor the younger know how much things they know. Or they probably pretend to know more.
2 comments:
Very good juxtaposition of the tradeoff between experience (and the knowledge embedded in it) and the willingness to learn new things.
Thank you for your praising and evaluating my comments. This is what I think everyday,sipping a cup of coffee. Although I am yet very young, even I often pretend to know much things. Not knowing much things but trying to know much is very important for us to live a good life, I think.
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