I was rereading some past essays this evening as I was marking them up and it struck me how far I’ve come as a writer. Oh, and how far I still have to go.
I’ve become less formal and more formal, less comfortable and more comfortable. It’s these weird seeming contradictions that you see more as you get older that I never would have thought possible in earlier times. I used to be very black and white back then, but I’ve become much more nuanced. If my wife reads this, I imagine she’ll be chuckling since she’d say that I’m still more black and white than most people she knows. Still, I think that I’ve become more flexible and richer in my thinking.
And that is the true benefit of age and experience: richer thinking. I never would have believed it in my youth, but I’m ten times smarter than I used to be. It’s all about integration and the ability to make connections. The longer you live, the more connections and integrations you make—unless you become mentally lazy.