Where are the wise elders who can help us ameliorate our self destructive tendencies?"

 

They harvest their life experiences, pass on their wisdom to younger people, and safeguard the health of our ailing planet. Out of their late-life explorations in consciousness, elders bestow upon the world the life-giving wisdom it desperately needs and crown their lives with respect and honor.

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman; Miller, Ronald S.. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older (p. 10). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

The wise elder reaps the fruit of their lived experience. They reflect on the story of their life and cull it for nuggets of wisdom. These nuggets they want to pass on to others they are leaving behind in subsequent generations when they die.

Sometimes a life review at a very superficial level is described in an obituary. In past decades epitaphs on a gravestone were popular, summing up the essence of a person’s life in a few words.

In a death-avoiding society young people don’t want to consider the parting words of wisdom from the people who have lived and will die before them. It is assumed or feared that the elder will have nothing relevant, significant, and worthwhile in such technologically fast changing times to impart.

The wisdom of the elder comes not from technological knowledge and competence but from values. How can the technological marvels of contemporary times be beneficially utilized? Are the applications of modern knowledge and technology good or bad, beneficial or harmful, to be embraced or avoided?

While knowledge and information is expanding at an ever accelerating rate, and the application of this knowledge and information is applied in ever new and innovative ways, spiritual intelligence and consciousness seems to lag behind putting powerful tools in the hands of adult children who are not growing up fast enough to use the knowledge and technology wisely. This deficit in spiritual intelligence leaves homo sapiens in the position of creating the circumstances for their extinction from nuclear winter, climate warming, economic meltdown, genocide, etc.

As one dispairs at the state of the world in contemporary times, one might plaintively cry “Where are the wise elders who can help us ameliorate our self destructive tendencies?"