In this regard, I am referring not to the work / life balance over which most working people agonise especially working mothers but how we should handle the life portion of the equation. A number of issues crossed my mind over the past week or two which reminded me that either I am focusing on what is truly important due to wisdom – some would call that experience – or due to stage of life – some would call that age.

Main picture: This cat does not accept that a box in which he curled up as a kitten was now too small

The victory of Unintended Consequence over Cause and Effect

I would not conflate wisdom and age. Being an avid listener of 702 Talk Radio, I am appalled at the thinking skills of many callers. Sometimes I have to restrain myself from smashing the radio as if that will make the caller any more sagacious. The one line of reasoning that is both facile and erroneous, is to distil a complex problem into one simple solution. A hardy annual – or is that a perennial – is how to prevent excessive drinking and drunkenness? The supposed panacea is to ban the sale of alcohol on a Sunday. An equally risible solution is to ban its sale near churches or schools.

The trap that these Callers fall into is that for every complex problem they provide a solution that is both clear and simple but totally wrong.

A subset of this prevailing attitude is that the government must do something to resolve the problem. What about the citizens taking action themselves? Why not attend the school’s PTA meetings if it a school related problem? If it is a lack of governance in the local council, why not “vote the bastards out” as the American would say. The most inane comment that I hear by a caller to 702 Talk Radio went as follows: “I have to vote ANC in order to protect Jacob Zuma who is under pressure due to the Nkandla affair.”

The concept of “cause and effect” combined with the notion of the unintended consequence is clearly alien to these Callers.

No facile solutions

Life is complicated and is not susceptible to facile solutions. In a bygone era where most of the population were farmers, laws, injunctions and regulations were rare. The family lived their life as they saw fit. Even if the farmer had to run an iron monger business, a whore house or a nudist colony, they would never disturb their neighbours. With urbanisation and the need to keep the peace within the cramped urban precincts, a whole array of laws had to be enacted to ensure the smooth functioning of society.

The Social Glue that Binds Society

Apart from the formal legal edicts, the whole of life has been constricted by social do’s-and-don’ts. Most of the latter relate to good manners and social graces as the lack thereof debase life. Spitting in public – if fact spitting at all – should not be tolerated. The recent spate of spitting in the British Soccer League has tarnished both the League and its players. I have become increasingly intolerant of those who wilfully transgress in this regard.

Is this due to wisdom or age or perchance both?

From Consumption to Experience

The emergence of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all have one attribute in common: people want to share their experiences with their friends or virtual friends in the case of Facebook. I too experienced the same need to share my visceral experiences with others. A recent example arose when I finally after 23 years had run around the world in road races, 40 075kms in total.

This phenomenon represents a paradigm shift from impressing friends through the extent of one’s possessions to one where one would rather share experiences together. Twenty five years after an exhilarating hike along the Wild Coast, those who were present can still share our experiences. It is a bond that is resilient and it transcends any vain attempts at rivalry through the process of keeping-up-with-the-Jones. That is not an inclusive activity but rather for one’s personal edification.

Even in non-extreme cases, that type of competitive attitude does nothing to enhance a mutually beneficial relationship and in extreme cases could sour the friendship.

Experiences that are shared will be remembered for life.

For the most part, the inane, banal and trite comments on Twitter or Facebook do not qualify as sharing experiences. It is merely another form of condescension, of one upmanship that parades as sharing. In any case, how many people are interested whether one had a bowl of muesli for breakfast?

True sharing is sharing together, more akin to a dialogue than a monologue.

This willingness to share experiences has created a seismic shift, a veritable fault line from conspicuous consumption to conspicuous experience.

Decluttering one’s life

Another manifestation of this phenomenon is that of decluttering of one’s life except that its extent is far wider than merely the disposal of possessions.

“Possessions” that encumber one’s lifestyle either in the form of time and effort are getting their marching orders. Pools, pets and even in extremis friends who are an emotional drain on one and not uplifting are on the hit list. Why does one have to pander to a friend who has a constant need for validation? The occasional need such as after a divorce would be acceptable but the continual requirement for reassurance implies that the relationship is no longer mutually beneficial and needs to be terminated.

Likewise friendships with a Cassandra! The constant pessimism and bewailing the woes of the world is neither uplifting nor wise to accept on a long term basis. We all have a few of these types of friends. Normally one resists cutting them loose for some emotional or sentiment reasons such as their being a friend from ones days at play school. These are the most difficult with whom to break ones ties. Rather just ease out of the relationship gradually by not returning calls or forgetting their birthdays.

Like the person who married somebody under the misapprehension that they could mould them into their way of doing or thinking abruptly after 30 years of marriage recognising that nothing has indeed changed.

Likewise most of us fall into the pitfalls of life. These realisations for me came not through foresight but rather through circumspection.

The origin of that farsightedness is experience and age.

Or maybe we are like that fully-grown cat that will not accept that one needs a different –  that is a bigger box – and continue to squeeze one’s life into an inappropriate lifestyle.

Perhaps we all need to use that bigger box inspite of spurning it.