In Isabel Allende's novel, La ciudad de las bestias (City of the Beasts), Kate Cold, the grandmother of the protagonist, 15-year-old Alexander, says:
"Con la edad se adquiere cierta humildad, Alexander. Mientras más años cumplo, más ignorante me siento. Sólo los jóvenes tienen explicación para todo." ("With age, you acquire a certain humility, Alexander. The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.")
Allende's observation crystallizes a major distinction between the aged and youth. As we move through childhood, our parents, teachers, and other elders give us what we believe to be a reliable playbook of life. We are know-it-alls. But as we evolve from children to adults, experience shows us countless contradictions between what our guardians taught us and what we learned through observation. Our desired outcomes are too often derailed, our relationships are too unexpectedly transformed, our hopes are too frequently dashed. Life is just unpredicatable, full of risks and surprises, some good and some bad. The longer we live, the more untrustworthy we realize the expression, "Now I've seen everything." Now matter how much we wish Kate Cold's comment to her grandson were merely an ironic remark by a bitter, disillusioned old woman, we accept it as an enduring truth.
