I heard Dustin Hoffman, on the Parkinson show say something that seemed a bit unusual or predictable, depending upon the view, but certainly different in my humble opinion. He said that he thought it strange that people said they would not change a thing in their lives. That he would in fact change a great deal, do very much differently. He said, ``give me back my 20's give me back my 30's and I would do things differently.'' My first knee jerk reaction to this was a great sadness, because it sounds like all opportunities that were taken by this man were either not enough, or not the correct choice in his life. Then allowed myself the contemplation of just how many other people have done likewise and feel the same.
The truth is that no one would change anything in their lives when aged 20 and 30 and such. Because after all, we acted on what we knew, the situation and circumstances to hand, and there is no point saying, ``if I knew what I knew now.'' It's a wasteful comment, which cannot produce a difference, because our parents thought they knew better and most of us didn't listen even to them. That isn't even a pipe dream, because it isn't sensible. It just won't happen and wasn't supposed to happen, because if we knew what we knew now, the same opportunities wouldn't present themselves, because we would be in a very different situation, a very different road and place indeed. Even if we thought that we could then accept some of the ``other'' opportunities which we missed or passed up, they wouldn't be available to the ``who I am now'' person. It didn't sound wistful, because a person who makes choices that please someone else is a fool trying to please a fool. Maybe this was done? If we made the choices that please us and follow our hearts at the time, would we really choose differently knowing what we do now? In my own case, hardly.
This is the old trying to take the lead of the young and pull them through what they experienced, and find the entrance is just too small. Things have changed far too much to ever allow such a thing to work for the individual, and though there may be some instances where this could be a desirable thing, it would still mean that the person being dragged is of the same temperament of the one doing the dragging. If we fit the mould of the older people, then we have not grown, have no progressed and have spent little time thinking. The responsibility of the old is to tell he young what happened to them, and forewarn them from this experience, and then let them go. The old are not supposed to control the young. They are only guides - no more. Decisions have to be left to those who have to live with them, those who have lived have made their choices and if they need to dream, it may be more interesting to dream about the opportunities presenting themselves to the young.
No comments:
Post a Comment