"Youth is wasted on the young."
This quote is generally attributed to George Bernard Shaw, although I first heard it in the movie Its a Wonderful Life.
And to be honest, I have to disagree. I believe, in fact, that youth is quite perfectly suited to the young. Who else would have the energy for such colossal schemes and fabulous defeats? What better teacher can life offer than youth, and who other than the young are most in need of learning?
Here, in my neighborhood and about my usual haunts, I am continually surrounded by youth. There seems to be an overabundance of it in south Bali. This is because younger folks come here from all corners of the island, and from other islands as well, to seek employment in the tourist and business sections or to study in the universities, while the older folks have stayed in the ancestral home. Several times a year, the young folks will visit their homes, leaving their one-room apartments behind for a time in order to revisit, and recharge, in the ancestral nest, and likely eat a little bit better for that period of time. They will also bring money to the family, which they have saved from their already meager wages. Pulang kampong, they call it. Going home.
I watch them daily as they rush about, trying to do a hundred things at once, and although I admire their energy, I also find it exhausting.
We have a certain amount of time to grow, to learn, to fail and to succeed, to seek love and to suffer and to seek love again. We run the race clumsily, but with vigor.
Here, in my neighborhood and about my usual haunts, I am continually surrounded by youth. There seems to be an overabundance of it in south Bali. This is because younger folks come here from all corners of the island, and from other islands as well, to seek employment in the tourist and business sections or to study in the universities, while the older folks have stayed in the ancestral home. Several times a year, the young folks will visit their homes, leaving their one-room apartments behind for a time in order to revisit, and recharge, in the ancestral nest, and likely eat a little bit better for that period of time. They will also bring money to the family, which they have saved from their already meager wages. Pulang kampong, they call it. Going home.
I watch them daily as they rush about, trying to do a hundred things at once, and although I admire their energy, I also find it exhausting.
We have a certain amount of time to grow, to learn, to fail and to succeed, to seek love and to suffer and to seek love again. We run the race clumsily, but with vigor.
Therefore we, on whom youth can no longer be wasted, release, or rather are released by youth, to return to our old ancestral homes, where plenty of chairs await our rest.
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