A Word to the Wise (Old)

The major advantage of the old and wise has been the benefit of learning from experience in one's own life -- and not just learning from one other -- who may not be the wisest person in the world. In fact, most come to question whether the person most influential in that indoctrination knew anything at all -- and not that they knew everything, as they maintained.  

That is a healthy skepticism leading one to eventually question everything, and find out the truth of such matters for themselves -- rather than simply believing everything unquestioningly on face value -- as long as they insisted they were the properly-designated authorities on such matters, and had the "credentials" to prove it.

The proof always, is in the actual results and difference it makes -- in every real world test.  The laboratory conditions, are invariably contrived to whatever conditions one thinks is important -- and begins with that flawed premise -- that it actually matters.  Otherwise, they would just test it in the real world -- and dispense with the highly manipulated conditions.  Often, as is frequent now, the results merely confirm with what those funding the study want to "prove," and nothing beyond that objective can be considered.

In fact, many are thought that the "scientific method" is to propose a hypothesis and prove it -- rather than more importantly, finding out the truth of the matter.  That might be that there are much more important matters to consider, and while one can prove their hypothesis, that may not be the most significant consideration.  One has only proven what one set out to prove -- which is usually a simple matter of excluding every other explanation.

That is definitively not science -- but simply believing whatever one wants to believe -- which is how most people operate, and then complain that what they are doing is not working.  It may be that they are exercising a lot -- but feel compelled to do more (because they are not getting the desired results).  But instead of thinking they might be wrong, they think they merely need to do more -- of what is obviously not working.

There is a belief among many people that a lot more of the wrong thing, eventually makes it the right thing -- rather than that the right thing manifests from the very beginning, and is self-evident immediately.  Thus we have the common belief that in a year from now, what they are doing now, will show favorable results -- rather than immediately, and thereafter.  Time is used in this way to disconnect from the present reality in favor of an imagined scenario divorced from the present reality.

In this way, many come to prefer their ideas rather than the reality -- which tells them they are wrong.  It is more important to such people to always be "right" -- no matter how wrong they are, and everything in reality tells them so.  So as they get older, they become more delusional -- and you can't convince them otherwise.  That's why it is so important to connect the mind with the body -- as the manifestation of the truth.