Wisdom comes at a price

[hyphenate]

Have you ever found that wisdom gained from experience--and age--makes you realize you can finally understand some antagonist from your younger years? But it is a Pyhrric Victory, as that other person is already gone? Perhaps this is one of the great examples of irony--the pain of knowing you might have been wrong in the first place.


A very long time ago, my birth mother gave me up for adoption, and I was placed with her brother, who was my uncle. She had a very troubled life, had many different lovers in her youth, and had any number of illegitimate babies, all of who (but one) were given up for adoption or monetary gain. My passion for pro-choice stems from this knowledge, knowing that a lot of people in the decades preceding Roe V Wade were faced with only one viable alternative to keeping a child: give up the child.

But lately, I've come to a point where I feel very sorry for her. Who she was, was not me, nor did I have to deal with the circumstances she dealt with. Perhaps she loved me after all, knowing that she wasn't the mothering type, and that according to her religious beliefs, sex without birth control was the norm. This can be said of Irish Catholics--they literally took "God" at his command: "Br fruitful and multiply."

How different a woman in the present is to a woman 55-60 years ago! There are choices now that weren't available then. And so, after endless thinking about the situation, I have begun to forgive her for her lifestyle, insofar as I am personally involved. She wasn't a bad woman--just someone who never truly applied herself to her life. She was the kind of woman who didn't think much of herself unless she was hanging on the arm of a man. She was an alcoholic, who could never see herself as free to do what she wanted to do. What she wanted to do was travel--something I don't think she ever did. She finally ended up in a loveless marriage to a man who was never there for her, either literally or emotionally, leaving her more alone than ever before.

It has taken me forever to get to this point, but it is the kind of event that comes more often as I grow older. Once the bliss of youth is gone, we can look back with some degree of comprehension of the lives of the people around us. It's like that "Eureka!" moment, when suddenly, some things snap into crystal clarity, and the fog of youth vanishes. We've all heard people say "youth is wasted on the young." It is only at a point when the veil of self-importance is lifted, when we know we were wrong, and have to come to grips with our own demons. Wisdom--but with a price. We can never apologize to the person--or persons--we have collided with again, and we then need to forgive the next best thing: ourselves.

[EFerrari]

1. Congratulations.

:hug:

[nykym]

2. Nicely stated

Thank you.

[benld74]

3. Well stated. Goes to the 'If I knew then, what I know now' idiom.

As my mother used to tell me growing up, 'Things happen for a reason, and only God know what that reason is'.

[lunatica]

4. Funny how you mother helped you become wise

There's something in there to thank her for.

Great post!

[NEOhiodemocrat]

5. I am glad you have achieved some peace

I know I sure have learned a lot over 60 years. The knowledge does put things in perspective.

[angstlessk]

6. I did a rhyme about "Knowledge vs Wisdom"

"Knowledge"
I have all my days knowledge sought
with nar’ a glimpse at wisdom.
Knowledge can, after all, be bought
and its cost not at all burdensome.

A wise person could look like anyone.
An educated one more distinct.
A wise one spends much time alone-
an underdeveloped social instinct.

And has not knowledge created its own
monuments to the skill of the learned.
I've seen the glow of the Santa Anna dome,
and, oh! the money such creations earned.

What, may I ask, do the wise have to show
for their reign this past millennium?
It's God, not they, who makes things grow,
and He'll protect us from spent plutonium.

Those who seek wisdom for wisdom's sake
have a difficult time I'll assure.
For truth is something that's hard to fake
and once out impossible to secure.

And could not I, with this knowledge gained
convince those foolhardy folks
(though all the while they are being feigned)
Knowledge becomes Wisdom when it molts?

http://angstlessrhymer.blogspot.com/2008/11/knowledge.html