We often solidify and even petrify our positions and thoughts, especially in the fields in which we are most experienced. We try to protect what is, because of the risk of what could or will be. Respectable elders are regarded because of their experience and ability to see past the immediate effects of a given change; whether that change be presented by an inexperienced child, adult, or nature herself. You might see change coming to your industry, like myself, and think we should enforce and codify ways to protect what we know to be correct and good, to prevent the corruption and damage of what is new.

I often find myself thinking “I know nothing, yet I know too much and never enough”. For someone to have experience is to be burdened by knowledge that is sometimes only relevant to exactly you and your circumstances, and other times larger audiences, up to the whole of humanity. Knowing which is which is hard. Coercing those without it to learn it from you without experiencing themselves is harder. Learning who to trust, whose experience is valuable, and whether or not it is applicable to them now, let alone in the futures unknown, is itself meta-experience that has to be learned on it’s own. In many cases people don’t even make it that far. All that leaves you with is information.

Recorded information is the forward progress of humanity for those who will read the experience of those who came before, and apply it. There’s so much information, too much, and again still not enough. Determining what is valuable information to the modern era, and what should be left to history is a job for a thousand humans living thousand year lifetimes. Which is a travesty given that each person does not get to live long enough to build a determination of what is useful and what is pulp. And so you’re left with a life, short, and perpetually inexperienced to timelines of humanity, to live your life to the degree you can, hopefully in a way that you enjoy.

This short essay is for me to re-read as I get older. At the time of writing I am 32. For future Caleb: Consider that we don’t have time to learn from our elders about the best and most correct way for every path traveled. Sometimes trails are taken back by nature through disuse; maybe because the road washed out up ahead. But if you never let anyone go down it again for centuries, you might miss that the washed out road became a cresting watershed worthy of simply visiting. Having historical context is laudable and important, but even you cannot learn all the variables of history to inform the origination of the present, or to predict the future. Let the youngins try their ideas to gain their own experience. You won’t be around long enough to stop them anyhow. All information is valuable, but not all value is in information.