Old Man Wisdom
A couple of summers ago an elderly gentleman walking down the street stopped for a moment in front of our driveway. Not realizing he was looking in my direction, he took me by surprise with his words.
“I’m an old man,” he said. “My days are long, but the years are short.”
Leaving no opportunity to respond, he just chuckled at me, then continued down the road. I watched him until he disappeared over the hill, his words hanging in the air.
“What was that all about?” I wondered. “Who was he? A poet? A wise old codger? Maybe he was an angel?” As I laughed at my thoughts, I wasn’t able to shake what he had said. It was as if Neil Young’s “Old Man” took a look at my life, then walked away.
Twenty-first-century soul that I am, I immediately left the street for the Internet. Within seconds my query was answered, Wikipedia citing a Gretchen Rubin and her Happiness Project as the crafter of the old man’s quip. Never heard of her. A New York Times bestseller, an online mega presence, maybe I should have.
To be honest I was a tad disappointed. I was hoping the authour was my old man, or at the very least an angel. Google could suck the mystery out of Agatha Christie.
I stared at the screen unsatisfied with Wikipedia’s virtual certainty. Though appreciative of the authour’s modern, masterful turning of a phrase, I wondered if her muse may have been a more ancient soul, One that has been inspiring generations of poets with questions of life and mortality for millennia.
"Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight;
Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.”
Such ideas are at home in a book of wisdom, inscribed over a tomb, or upon the tongue of an old man.
I wonder where my old guy first encountered the proverb? Maybe he was a closet Happiness Project fan. Maybe he downloaded the quote as an image or meme. Wherever, it somehow resonated in his mind to such degree that he felt to share it with a stranger.
I’m glad he did. The words have come to mind during rights of passage bringing a much-needed perspective to a child’s birthday, a chance reunion, a sad piece of unexpected news, his face appearing again out of the blue, reminding of the beautiful, brevity of life.
I am happy to report that despite the passing of time, my days still seem about the same in length. More often than not, there are too many things to accomplish before any given nightfall.
As of late, however, the years are being less faithful than the days. They seem in far too great a hurry regarding the things that matter most- family, health, and a dream or two. “Where did last year go? Is it winter already? What do you mean grey hair?”
The beginning of a New Year seems to stoke such thoughts.
What was that Neil? “Love lost, such a cost; Give me things that don't get lost; Like a coin that won't get tossed.” That’s all very fine sir, but “Look at how the time goes past.”
If I could go back, to that day on the street side, I would run after my aged friend, and shout, “Old man, look at my life. I’m a lot like you were.”
Ah, enough of the melancholy. There’s plenty of time yet to live. “It’s “not too late to seek a newer world… Tho' much is taken, much abides,” etcetera, etcetera. Just don’t listen to my children. They are deceived. I am not an old man, though I have potential.
When the day of age does come, if by chance you hear me saying, “My days are long, and years are short,” I hope you’ll see me enjoying life as much as that “old man” was the moment he startled me street side. Maybe God will grant me the opportunity of startling some other soul on the backside of middle age with a little “Old Man Wisdom” of my own.
Old Man, Neil Young, Harvest Moon, 1972
Gretchen Rubin, "the days are long"
Online citations last visited January 1, 2018.