Thursday, November 05, 2015

Older People Are Smarter



Older people are smarter ...
Life is an education; if you're older, you're smarter. If you're in an argument with someone and they're older than you, listen to them. It doesn't mean they're right, but even if they're wrong their wrongness is rooted in more information than you have. A fifty-five year old garbage man is a million times smarter than a twenty-eight  year old with three PhDs; especially smarter than him because this guy has been thinking about just three things for 15 years. He's worthless. The garbage man is 55 and he has experience -- things happened to him. He went to Cape Cod one summer and saw a dead guy floating in a motel pool; he took a bus ride to Montreal; he saw the president of America weep like a baby on TV and then quit his job ....  (Louis CK Older People are Smarter - Oh My God).

23 comments:

Jess said...

I deal with such things daily. I've reached the point I realize my knowledge is wasted on teaching people my skills, and better used on separating their money from their wallet.

DougM said...

Yeah,
I remember when people made fun of a president who golfed a lot.
Eisenhower.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but "Ike" was a general, and the Supreme Allied Commander in WWII, not some fucking coke-dealing, America-hating "community organizer". As so many have noted, we'd be so much better off if the current president would just stay on the fucking golf course.

Ann Hedonia & Sam Paku

Anonymous said...

Advice....Wise men don't need it, fools won't heed it.

Z

Anonymous said...

A few years ago, several young know-it-all, I'm immortal, imbeciles of my acquaintance were hotly discussing something or another, and I stepped in, gave them my opinion (which was correct, BTW) and they grew silent, blank looks on their faces as wheels slowly turned, reality set in, and then one asked me how I knew that.
I told them "Guys, I know the answers to questions you don't even know to ask yet," and walked off. (I was born while FDR was president)
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

Anonymous said...

"The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself." ~ Tom Wilson

Luigi

David aka True Blue Sam said...

I once leveled a refrigerator for a man with a PhD in physics. Dumb SOB couldn't read the bubble in a level and make sense out of it. He hated me for it. I was just a sophomore working on a forestry degree, but I could move and install appliances! Been unemployed a total of two weeks in fifty years, and I bet he can't say that.

Anonymous said...

Louis CK on "the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiVi1sR2rM

Sir H the Comet

Anonymous said...

After a couple of Saturdays sitting in a cafe in "The Villages" filled with old Yankee's, you will fully realize that age and wisdom are gears that don't always mesh - Anymouse

Leonard Jones said...

Until I grew tired of it, I spent a lot of time on another Blog sparring
with some imbecilic Millennial slacker was trolling the site. At least
3 times, I managed to steer the historically illiterate twit into making
an ass of himself. I would give him a subtle hint about a historical
fact and knowing he could not form a coherent sentence without a
Wikipedia search, I set a trap. The subject was Lois Zamperini,
a local hero, known as the Torrance Tornado, which was the only
clue I gave him.

The moron took the bait. Nitwits like this have the attention span of gnat.
They are not for the most part fond of reading. When he countered
by saying "Zamperini was not a hero, his plane just broke down,"
I responded by telling him that if he had read the entire Wikipedia
entry, he would think otherwise.

Like most of my generation, I was taught to read by my mother. She was one
of biggest book-whores on the planet. I was reading at a 2nd grade level
when I entered kindergarten. I have consumed enough dead tree media in
my life to clear a large forest. Thanks Mom!


Anonymous said...

I worked for a crusty old Chief Petty Officer once. Actually several of them over my twenty years in the Navy, but I'll never forget this one. He didn't offer advice per se, he would just interject 'You're fixin to f*ck up' and then later he would say 'See?' He taught me to evaluate my choices better.
Tim

drummermanrick said...

There is such a thing as someone being over-educated, where the world is just a virtual understanding with no real world experience to put sense to it. You see this a lot with politicians. Aren't politicians people who think that just by passing a law a problem will get solved?

It bothers me to see so many young college people who think they already have the world figured out.

drummermanrick

toadold said...

There is a saying that is attributed to Mark Twain that he probably wrote for one of his characters.
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."
A bunch of slightly different version showed up after Mark Twains death. Also Mark Twains Father died when he was 11.
Any way it became popular and was attributed to Twain from 1915 and on. Twain died in 1910.

Skoonj said...

toadold, that quote is one I heard on one of the Mark Twain Tonight albums. I think Hal Holbrook was the performer doing Twain.

Leonard Jones said...

Responding to the last 3 posts. There is no such thing as being "Over-educated."
The problem with most of these millennials is that they are as dumb as a fence
post. My 30 year young Pakistani buddy is an example of a of a high functioning
member of his generation.

I just related the story of the 9 year old black boy who was shot in the head
by a rival of his fathers gang in Chicago. The brighter members of his generation
call Chicago "Chi-raq." He has been telling me that his cohort will surprise us
next November!

Juice said...

Younger person to older person

YP: Where did you hear that?
-or- How do you know all of that?
OP: I lived it.

DougM said...

Wisdom comes from experience.
Experience comes from lack of wisdom.

pdwalker said...

DougM,

You nailed it.

I'll also add that pain is a GREAT educator.

Unknown said...

Juice wrote:
YP: Where did you hear that?
-or- How do you know all of that?
OP: I lived it.

Hmmm...'Reminds me of the title of Elmer Keith's autobiography, "Hell, I was THERE!"

David said...

My first week out of college starting my first job as an engineer. My mentor took me down the the machine shop and introduced me to three men - a machinist, a woodworker and a plastics technician. He said "You have more formal education than these three men combined. But their knowledge and understanding of how things work will make you seem like a moron. Sit down, shut up, listen to them, learn from them. You will spend one week with each man. Take advantage of this opportunity."

Those were the most useful, educational, constructive three weeks of my career...

Leonard Jones said...

Good point David. Walking out of college with a BS in
engineering, does not make you an engineer. What makes
one an engineer is the years you spend working with GM,
Northrop, etc. You learn the formulas and the theories
in colleges, but the practical stuff comes later.

drummermanrick said...

" There is no such thing as being "Over-educated.""

Really? Case in point, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/

Anonymous said...

11/10/1775 - 11/10/2015 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARINES
"There was a Marine Corps before there was a United States,
There will be a Marine Corps after the United States,
In spite, of the United States". Sr. Drill Instructor Ed A. Poe Platoon 2061, 1984
-Anymouse

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