Decades Ago...
…I got to know a young Chinese cook. He came to our little kitchen and taught me how to make Cong You Bing (scallion pancakes). His name was Tzu—not Lao Tzu, of course. He was only in his twenties, and “Lao” means “old,” “elderly,” or “venerated.”
In Chinese culture, the elderly are esteemed—presumably for their wisdom, such as Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism.
The Chinese also practice ancestor worship, so respect for their elders can be thought of as ancestor worship in advance. Gweilo (white devils), however, venerate youth. We do everything possible to forestall, or at least disguise, the aging process. Obviously, our culture places great value on immaturity (i.e., the absence of wisdom) as long as we continue to look glowingly, beautifully, and smoothly ignorant.
You might think that I’ve been spurred to write about this because the Lunar New Year is just a couple of weeks away. Not at all (but now I’m craving century-egg Moon Cakes). No… what got me started was my wife joking that she was having prostate problems.
“What…” I mused, “…if the ‘wisdom’ that is oft attributed to old age has nothing to do with long-acquired experience? What if the actual cause is nothing more than the result of reduced levels of sexual hormones?”
As we age, men and women gradually become more like each other. Some men develop breasts, and some women sprout beards and mustaches. At the same time, hormone-driven urges that once characterized our youth fade away. We become (I’m being optimistic here) less inclined to behave stupidly in service to our genitalia. I can’t speak for females, but the vast number of monumentally stupid things done by young males—while in the grip of testosterone poisoning—speaks for itself.
Now that old age has me in its grip, I can honestly say that I do not—at all—miss the sturm und emotional drang of my twenties. Nonetheless, claiming to have acquired “the wisdom of age” would be grossly overstating the benefits of reduced hormone levels.
However, as ridiculously cold as it’s been this winter, I wouldn’t object to having a few hot flashes.
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