Older and Wiser
A Koan
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
—Carl Jung
Above: Is a stooped posture a sign of prudence?
I once thought that getting older automatically made you wiser.
That each year bestowed knowledge and every decade gifted wisdom.
That hair lost meant lessons learned and wrinkles worn signaled triumphs had.
But that’s just not the case.
The truth is getting older just means getting much more comfortable with who you are.
And the funny thing is—
That's wisdom after all.
Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.
If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter X.
With sincere gratitude,
Tom
Interestingly, Tom, the word for wise in German is weise, while wisdom is Weisheit. What might be more apropos to you, though, is that the word Weiss (it actually has the little double "s" thing instead of two esses) means white. Well, since you are surnamed White, or Weiss, maybe you are getting a little more weise as the years go by.
As Frank Sinatra put it "And now I think of my life as vintage wine from fine old kegs, from the brim to the dregs it poured sweet and clear, it was a very good year." May 2025 bring you even more Weisheit!
https://youtu.be/XKTfBm0ryUQ
Getting comfortable with who you are. That's 💯 true.