Late Learning

In advancing age come insights almost intended to be private—or to be shared only with one’s life-long mate—not because they shouldn’t be shared but because they require experiences that humanity only achieves in its advancing years. One has to be adequate for such knowledge—and it cannot be shared with those who haven’t gotten there yet.

In this category belongs the notion that conceptual intellection is merely a tool, an artifact, developed principally for practical purposes—and because, within these bodies, we cannot communicate directly with others mind to mind. Another is that all life is intelligent, in the higher sense—but cannot communicate that state to us because it lacks the artifact of conceptual language. Vast aggregations of habit—especially if one has lived largely in a conceptual world—make it almost impossible to believe that one can communicate, not least great complexities, without using abbreviations, tokens, which is what language is.

This came to mind today, again, reading a post on Laudator Temporis Acti (“Almost too Pitiful to Bear”) where one John Buchman hears the anguish of the trees as a grove is felled. We assign that sort of thing to the imagination—but even if we think we know a lot, in advancing age, it is obvious that we have a whole lot more to learn—and that that learning will come when we have passed.