19 GaySocrates- Seasoned Experience for Young Bucks

Just been doing some checking out of Socrates on Google and discovered a great translation of ‘The Apology’ which is Plato’s play describing the trial of Socrates ( http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html )

As we all know Socrates was a great Greek philosopher. I hadn’t realised that he didn’t write much but what we know of him was from the writings of his pupil Plato. The two philosophers were great lovers of men. Socrates was sentenced to drink poison following a trial where he was accused, and subsequently found guilty, of corrupting the youth of Athens.

I suppose Socrates is a bit of a hero to me since I too have a mission to corrupt the youth of my community!

Through writing this blog I’m becoming acutely aware of the power of language to defeat an argument before it’s even started. Initially I was thinking about a strap-line that included words like 'advice from someone older and wiser'. But how off-putting to a potential reader is that? The implication being that the writer is old and decrepit but also that the reader is lacking in wit.

I’m preferring the word 'seasoned' as opposed to 'older' implying, as it does, that through age something has been accumulated and there is now something more rather than something less!

Similarly ‘experienced’ doesn’t place a value judgement on what has been experienced. It’s avoiding saying ‘read this blog, it’s full of things you need to know and by not knowing them you’re a lesser person and by reading it you’re acknowledging that you’re in need of improving'.

I suppose I’m beginning to see that no matter how what I have to say is packaged, it will inevitably fail to reach its target audience.

So maybe I need to just accept that!

I know for sure that a former me in my 20s and 30s would have never thought to seek advice from an older man. In fact I would have been actively avoiding and extremely cautious about anything coming from anyone even remotely resembling my father. Young men, women and nurturing older men were the only people I would trust or pay attention to. Any older male with intellectual ideas and advice would be seen as immediately suspect.

But with the passage of time, I’ve managed to make my peace with my old father and now I’m more open not only to receiving ideas from the previous generation but also to transmitting ideas to the next generation.

I’ll be quite happy though if these musings are read by my own generation. Just as something to chew over or to identify with or to react against.

So what has my seasoned experience taught me that can be put in terms which wont just sound like a nagging broken record? That’s for me to perfect. I need to keep working on it J