Wisdom

Le Terrace Club was a private pool where I spent a bunch of summers growing up. For those of you who are wondering, yes, it’s THAT Le Terrace Club. I mention the true name only because I’m not going to hide the fact that we were members, and it’s relevant to the extent that it exemplifies something important. Lots of other people were members, too. It was a place to get wet in the summer. Whatever its policies were, neither my family nor I had any part in them. In fact, at the time, we didn’t really notice altogether what was going on. Complacent? Maybe. Wrong? Probably. Lacking wisdom? Definitely.

But I was just trying to get a tan by the diving board.

After reading The Science of Older and Wiser in the New York Times last week, I am forced to admit I’m still not wise. Yet. I’m getting there. I mean, my wisdom does tell me that Everybody Wang Chung Tonight isn’t the great song I once thought. Oh, and cutting your own bangs? Bad idea. There are absolutely some nuggets of wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. I realize it when my son says, “How did you know that, Mommy?”

I know because it isn’t my first rodeo.

Actually, the pool club was itself a rodeo of sorts. There was a perfectly tanned and coifed group of forty-ish women in one-piece leopard bathing suits. They were sophisticated. They were savvy. They did not get their hair or made-up faces wet. I listened carefully to all of their conversations. In fact, I learned a lot of important stuff from their poolside banter. But they were not like my mom, who, although friendly with them, read all day in the shade covered in titanium strength sun block, until it was time to slap on her bathing cap and swim a thousand laps when the sun went down.

I thought the pool ladies were wise. They probably were. My mom was wiser, though. Because she actually went into the water and swam. She might have been afraid of the sun – which turned out to be pretty wise, in and of itself – but she wasn’t afraid to get her hair or face wet. And that’s what counted.

After all, what was the point of paying all that money to go to a pool club if you weren’t ever going to swim?

Wisdom.

Wisdom is certainly difficult to define, isn’t it? Perhaps older and wiser go hand in hand, but perhaps not. In my opinion, wisdom is situational, fluid, and variable. I like to think of it as similar to waves in the ocean. It can be dependent upon experience, and that’s probably why many older people are wiser, but not exclusively so. I can name quite a few shamefully ignorant older people. People whose example would best be followed into a ditch. Covered with dirt. And heavy boulders on top for good measure.

Like the television commercial says, one minute we’re discovering the Theory of Relativity, the next minute, not so much. It applies to the young and old alike.

And wisdom is like that, too.

No, just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re necessarily wiser. You probably are. But not in every situation. Wisdom exists on an individual continuum. By definition, it has to be different for each person, condition, and level of comprehension.

The wisest people are not the oldest, but the ones who are able to process what goes on around them in the most prudent way possible, then go on to make the best decisions they can for each circumstance. It doesn’t always mean being right. Not by a long shot. It DOES mean, however, knowing that to sit by a pool means you’re probably getting wet. The wisest people embrace this; they jump in the pool and swim.

Most importantly, though, the wisest people realize they’re not always the wisest. They admit when they’re wrong. They have sense. They move on. They grow. Not staying the same – that’s wisdom, in my eyes.