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Modes of Thought
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 10/9/2001 10:08 AM (GMT -6) |   | Please note: this is just for fun!!! I mean no harm and hope that it will be taken in the spirit in which it is intended to be recieved....
I have heard Greg suggest (via his character solidification theory) that we become increasingly set in our ways as we grow progressively older. While I grant a sort of general validity to this observation, I have heard a more interesting theory recently from a very wise woman a bit older (not telling how much cause I don't really know) than me.
Here goes:
We go through a cyclical pattern of knowing and not knowing throughout our lives:
Early on as children we have lots of questions and want answers later on in childhood and throughout teenage years, we think we have heard all the answers to all the most important questions. So, therefore we know everything. At least everthing we need to know. However, if we continue on in life a while we begin to realize again that we do not know so much, either education or just life in general teaches us this. Here is where I currently am, at age 28, very sure about the fact that there is a lot that I do not know. From here on it is speculation for me, and wisdom from my friend....
I am told that as one progresses through the 20s and 30s into the 40s one is likely to have completed childrearing responsibilities and be in that sort of mid-life state, here again....so goes this theory, we know everything again. We have built/bought houses, we have had kids, been employed long-term, had to make many decisions that we are now living in, etc. We know what is right in politics, in church, in homes, etc. But this wise woman suggests that this is yet another stage that we must pass through, she suggests that there comes a time again when we recognize that we didn't know nearly so much as we thought during our mid-life years (here I am thinking of 40 somethings or so...). In fact, she tells me, she is very open to learning and dialoguing with people in the 20s or so because she feels more akin to them in spirit and mindframe.
Now, I realize that many here are going to potentially be implicated by this suggestion. My question is, what do you make of it in terms of general adequacy in describing the 40s to mid-lifers?
For one thing, this second theory does a better job of explaining how Greg's father could have become a Christian at such an advanced stage in life....he know longer knew everything for the third time in his life....(first being "early childhood," second being "disillusioned 20 somethings" and third being "post mid-lifers")
BTW: I constructed this triadically specifically for the rhetorical power such a structure would have in a cult of this type.
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK | | Back to Top | | |
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