A Different Algorithm
“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.”
Another winter exploring the ancient mountains of home.
Slowly, and inefficiently, but surely.
Three mementos of passing age while passing through.
A different living algorithm applied to familiar pathways.
Older
Unequivocally, measurably, I am older. Older than my first use of a toy film camera in the 80s. Older than my first childhood forest wander.
Older than my first glimpse of solitary freedom, and its bridge to learning lifelong curiosity, awe, reverence.
Now, age is felt in my hips and heels after the steep hikes, but also in my intellectual, emotional, and spiritual scaffolding.
A welcome, biologically-programmed, physically-inevitable patina to own and not lament.
Humbler
Very few assumptions and preconceptions of people, nature, and the world - many formed earlier in life - have survived.
Long-held certainties have made way for new interrogation of society and nature, as well as my interior expanse.
Daily routine is now met with quieter modes of seeing and feeling. Accepting and rejecting the pesky, tenuous limitations of precious attention.
All of it somehow both integral and subject to change, sometimes overnight, without notice.
Wiser
Hidden from view but formed from decades of experience, jubilation, loss. An internal understanding and warmth.
A respect for learning and endless play, self-guided education. Patience to notice and absorb every insignificant pattern and to synthesize before quietly going dormant when necessary.
A defining, lasting brightness within.
Older, 3/13/26
Humbler, 3/6/26
Wiser, 2/12/26
