Good advice

“When I was young, people told me: you’ll see when you’re fifty. I’m fifty. I’ve seen nothing”
Eric Satie

There’s a meme that crops up on social media with some frequency where older people give advice about life. What’s really important, when it comes down to it? Here’s an example. It’s mostly good quality. You know, don’t focus too much on work. The simple things are the best things. The moments of connection with those you love are worth more than your professional successes. Floss. Stuff like that. Here’s one I’m not so sure about: “Don't marry someone just because you love them. Make sure your lifestyles, dreams and plans are compatible in addition to loving them. Those little quirks and character flaws you overlook for love can become huge problems later in a long-term relationship, especially if they conflict with what you planned or where you want to go with your life.” Not terrible advice, but I found myself reacting to it negatively. What about trusting your instincts, being spontaneous, taking a chance on an intuition? Life can’t always go to plan, but seize the moment, right? You might disagree, but I’m hoping that some of the people I love aren’t too bothered by my ‘little quirks and character flaws’, or I could be in trouble…

This kind of advice is famously lampooned by Shakespeare in Hamlet, through the character of Polonius. In his speech to Laertes he gives lots of good advice, but in that sanctimonious tone that could drive anyone to distraction. Polonius is an old bore, to put it bluntly. Of course it’s a good idea to “Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment”, but don’t keep going on about it… There are at least two responses to ‘good advice’: 1 listen carefully, because you might learn something and 2 ‘Whatever Grandad’. The first is probably the more sensible, the second the more adolescent. Thing is, I like that second response. It appeals to the adolescent in me and it’s much more expressive. It’s an assertion of individuality, the wish to make up one’s own mind about things, to learn from experience, the hard way, which, when it comes down to it, is probably the only real way. As a parent of teenagers I’ve often found myself in the Polonius role, bored by the sound of my own advisory voice, imparting the best course of action to an eye-rolling 15-year-old (when they’re being polite).

Richard Frankel, in The Adolescent Psyche, talks about the transition in adolescence from prohibition to inhibition, in other words, the development of what you might loosely call a conscience. This transition is where the eye rolling comes in. Once you’ve started to figure certain things out for yourself it’s unbearably tedious to have them pedantically explained to you by an old bald bloke. My capacity to connect with that feeling is, I hope, the piece of floating driftwood that sometimes helps me not to sink, as I negotiate other people’s adolescence. I read ‘older people’s advice’, feel irritated, and can then empathise with the teenagers I know. And they’re not only understandable, they’re also often right. Older people are full of it, and younger people have often got to the solution first. This also helps when working therapeutically. The therapist might be in a position of power in the therapeutic dyad, but they’re not much use to the adolescent client unless they can empathise, unless they can understand how irritating they are, just sitting there. One client I was working with was appalled to discover that I was the same age as a certain pop icon they identified with, because of their adolescent stance. Maybe this was a moment of realisation for them – ‘I’m on my own, because even Eminem is old now’.

Advice to my younger self? I’m with Eric Satie: ‘Relax. When you’re older, you still won’t know anything’.