Nothing is more endearing\u00a0than a youth who prizes earlier generations and lacks the blinding hubris typical to the stage of the development.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
and to the god of our age….Youth, Oh the beauty\u00a0<\/span>of it. Personified, Venus, her name. (Youthful Beauty…or what nearly every commercial directed at females is about.)<\/strong><\/p>\nLike a baby unblemished and without scars, youth displays itself on the young like a pillar of potential, a stack of dreams and promises, shinning and magnificent, and\u00a0frozen for just that moment in time.\u00a0Though what youth feels this truly?\u00a0Youth is a\u00a0self-deluding time: The stage seems expansive when you are in it, and\u00a0experience can’t bear this out differently because of the\u00a0great lack of it.<\/em><\/p>\nSustaining this impossibility of sustained youth, this age of supposed\u00a0perfection becomes the futile and bitter plight for too many. And the fight for it is nonsensical.<\/p>\n
Youth is a stage to be enjoyed and then left behind like outgrown clothes, once pristine, but all-too-soon ill-fitting and inappropriate for the rest of the voyage. Ballet slippers are shed for work boots.<\/p>\n
How true that Youthful beauty is but one<\/span> kind.<\/strong> Though who knows this?<\/em><\/p>\nBy being\u00a0convinced that\u00a0beauty has a pinnacle (age 21?) too may rue the loss of\u00a0this exterior sort of it\u2013never realizing\u00a0the false\u00a0conception is\u00a0not based on much more than societal conventions and symmetry…but it sells a lot of face cream, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n
Yes, the flower of spring is glorious (youth indeed), but the whole plant, or tree, is the greater thing. An oak,\u00a0a tower in homage to resilience, humanity in the full, of which youthful can\u00a0never assail, let alone master.<\/p>\n
The joy and glory of youth is the promise<\/em> of accomplishment. Like graduation ceremonies and semi-finals matches.<\/strong><\/p>\nThough what youth sees it this way?<\/em><\/p>\nAnd what about the resentment of youth by the no longer young?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMaybe it\u00a0stems from\u00a0the regret of the energy and options lost. The verve the youths possess can seem enviable. Though they (youth) don’t know it, their blatant inexperience and lack of wisdom, from the outside<\/strong>, seems pitiful, just like the weakness and lethargy of advanced years seem like that to the youth.<\/p>\n“What a young fool,” says the\u00a0man.<\/p>\n
“What a tired and bitter old man,” says the youth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Both under-estimated.<\/p>\n
And back to confidence.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\nYouthful confidence rests in that accomplishments are\u00a0assured with effort and willingness. (Though it seems different to them sometimes. For them, confidence may rest mainly in feeling the power of mind and body so fully.)<\/p>\n
This confidence is often shattered or dismantled within a decade because of the slings and arrows of life. But\u00a0occasionally\u00a0not, and never for the\u00a0narcissist.<\/em><\/p>\nSickness, financial strain, mishaps, circumstances, failure, and the most debilitating – early success – strip out the potency of youthful confidence. With persistence and determination this is replaced by the better things: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n- stability of character<\/strong><\/li>\n
- the resolution of will\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n
- fortitude of spirit<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
But, best of all: the of acquisition compassion necessary for the species to survive, or even\u2013sometimes\u2013 thrive.<\/h3>\n
(Oh, that it is empathic compassion, not pity, is the impetus for acts of goodness.)<\/p>\n
And what of maturity of\u00a0the youth?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nA\u00a0mature youth is only mature compared<\/em> to his peers or the fools of older generations.<\/p>\nAnd for good reason. Maturity is a gift, not a certainty. It comes through time, but also by Grace, just as youth and health come. Though who knows this?<\/em><\/p>\nA “mature youth” is usually\u00a0an oxymoronic attribute, as genuine maturity involves accumulating wisdom.<\/p>\n
Maturity and wisdom come through\u00a0testing and testing by the passage of time well-lived and the battles of life well-tested.<\/p>\n
Youthful maturity is then only the bud<\/span> of it which, if it is there at all, is necessarily nestled in humility (knowing well, or in some good manner, the terrible disadvantage of inexperience).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nIn the end, the unknown exists for all,\u00a0<\/strong>but the degrees and varieties of it change as time passes and aging happens. Both exciting and terrifying\u2013needing courage and inner strength.<\/p>\nIt goes in stages from<\/p>\n
“What will I become?”<\/strong><\/p>\nto<\/p>\n
“What will become of me, and us all?”<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The joy and glory of youth is the promise of accomplishment. Like graduation ceremonies and semi-finals matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[6443,167,186,310,4378,362,5325,5194,451,612,759,774,790,4708,966,21,5810,5933,1184,4374,1307,1472,1503,4717,1598,1727,1729,6538,4716,1763,6253,1882,4081,1989,2016,48,2158,2223,2367,5026,6444,2533,4798,2703,6163,3852,2860,3212,3284,3444,6004,3495,4075,4135,4480,3655,3711,4264,89,3793],"class_list":["post-14817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality","tag-age","tag-aging","tag-alone","tag-baby","tag-be","tag-beauty","tag-best","tag-best-of","tag-body","tag-change","tag-commercial","tag-compassion","tag-confidence","tag-courage","tag-determination","tag-dreams","tag-energy","tag-essay","tag-experience","tag-feeling","tag-flower","tag-god","tag-good","tag-graduation","tag-health","tag-humanity","tag-humility","tag-humor","tag-if","tag-in","tag-inappropriate","tag-joy","tag-just","tag-left-behind","tag-life","tag-loss","tag-maturity","tag-mind","tag-not","tag-oh","tag-old","tag-persistence","tag-power","tag-prizes","tag-resentment","tag-resolution","tag-rest","tag-spring","tag-success","tag-time","tag-tired","tag-tree","tag-true","tag-unknown","tag-view","tag-weakness","tag-will","tag-wisdom","tag-work","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14817"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14846,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14817\/revisions\/14846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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