Is Experience a Handicap?

G. S. Rastogi

“Wisdom is the daughter of experience”, said Leonardo da Vinci. He was the fittest man to distill the sum of his experience in this aphorism. He was a painter par excellence, sculptor, biologist, architect, engineer and above all an innovator who thought of wings to fly as do the birds. Certainly there is no substitute to experience. A man in any profession, medical, legal, engineering, teaching, writing, sports etc. discovers many subtleties and masters his craft with the passage of time. But as we advance towards the twenty-first century we notice, to our dismay, that today experience is becoming more and more a disadvantage, a liability as far as passing one’s experience to the next generation is concerned. In the fast changing present day world stability is the biggest casuality. The faster the change the lesser is the universality of experience. Even a professional has to constantly adjust and adapt his skills to the emerging new knowledge and techniques in almost every field else he stands the danger of becoming stale and outdated and his rich experience would come to naught.

So we must guard ourselves against the advice of our elders or the scriptures. We must ponder over their words and follow them only when we feel convinced that their advice might help us in achieving our goals.

Formerly the changes in different spheres of life were so slow, almost imperceptible, that the rich experiences of the elders were passed on to the younger generation, which profited them. Human behavior in society was unobtrusively influenced by the experiences of the older generation. Their accumulated wisdom became our heritage. But today the situation is very different. Science and technology is changing the pace of life so fast that it is nigh impossible to keep in step with these changes. Naturally they require constant adjustment with the new changes that affect our life and thought. Traditions and customs take generations to take root but now there is hardly any time for that and the result is a general uprooting of the people from their moorings. They are left adrift. They are expected to plant their feet firmly on a constantly shifting ground. That is why the old values are losing ground and no new values are taking root. We stand on a crossroad not knowing which way to turn.

Just as the industrial revolution had a devastating effect upon the lives of the people who were engaged in farming, cottage industry, small trade etc the experiences of their stable agricultural society were of little use to the youth who had migrated to the cities and thus lost their roots. They had to cope with an entirely new environment and new situations and conditions of existence. Life became very complicated. In their dealings with fellow men they had no precedence to guide them. Still they somehow managed to withstand those changes for more than a hundred years.

But towards the end of the last century the speed of changes accelerated at a tremendous pace. First of all came the bicycle and soon after came the motor car and the aeroplane. Still the world managed to absorb these changes and the old values lingered on till the Second World War. Then the inventions came thick and fast. There came into active use jet planes, supersonic planes, atom and hydrogen bombs, rockets, space ships, conquest of the moon, space station and serious probing of the planets, heart transplant and even cloning of the animals. The development of telecommunication, world wide web and information technology with e-mail and e­-commerce have brought the whole world at our doorstep from where we can have whatever we want. The world has literally become a very small place where everything and everybody is within our reach, we have only to reach the electric button at our side. The experiences of the pre-war years were of little use to the post-war generation. Rapidity of change unsettles many of our convictions and beliefs go haywire.

Today we can fly anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours. Anything happening in any part of the globe is splashed throughout the world in no time. The electronic media has brought all the continents into our drawing rooms. The programs of one country have a global viewership. Cultural, educational, economic and sports activities have a universal audience, if not actual participation. This, naturally, has a far-reaching impact on the day to day lives of the people. Of late advertising blitz has taken the people by storm. The younger generation has been thoroughly brain washed especially in urban areas. Some of the consumer items advertised on the small screen have almost acquired a cult status. Children no longer relish plain milk. They must have bournvita, ovaltine, complan, maltova or some other preparation.

Different regions might like to preserve their cultural identity but in the fast paced life and television reaching the remotest parts of the world, there is an intermingling of the cultures of the different regions of the world. There is fusion music. Even the very exclusive and highly disciplined Indian classical music is being cast in a new mould. Experiments are going on with such stalwarts as Pt. Ravi Shankar, Zakir Hussain, Shobha Mudgal etc. trying to give a new flavour to our classical music by trying fusion music, synthesizing Indian and western harmonies. Some of our well-known dancers, like Pt. Birju Maharaj, are trying to bring in some innovative patterns in our dance styles. Our film or light music which is very popular has a very healthy approach towards music. It is eclectic and not exclusive in its approach. Music directors have been using many western musical instruments along with the native ones. With the easy availability of cassettes from all over the world they are trying to use inter-continental tunes and rhythms and beats of many regions across the world in their compositions. Pop and disco music has captured the hearts of the people, chiefly the youth, by their sheer novelty. My point is that there is no use lamenting the values of purity and mystique of the past as the new, born out of the old, is also beautiful. May be it is lacking in durability but in the world of today who cares for durability so long as the thing is new and alluring. What if it lasts only a few weeks, months or years, it should be in fashion. Tennyson’s lines will never go stale: “Old order changeth yielding place to new.”

Now if we go by the experiences of our elders what would become of us in this highly competitive world? They have not been able to come out of the moribund cliches like “break the will of the child else will grow his own”, early to bed and early to rise makes a man—” or “if wealth is lost nothing is lost—” What the practical wisdom says today is just the reverse. Psychology tells us that parents must build an atmosphere not of fear but of love and care around the child. The elders must not impose their will upon them instead they should be allowed to grow in an environment of freedom according to their natural talents.

We have to agree with Maugham that money is the sixth sense or as Shaw says in Major Barbara that money means health, beauty, power, honor and poverty means all evil, ugliness, dishonesty, disease and squalor etc. No doubt the Bible tells us “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” but who pays any heed to such sermons.

Though we have to take Shaw and Maugham with a pinch of salt in the last analysis they are right. Our elders used to say that money is of no value whereas one’s word or friendship or character matters a great deal. It is just the opposite in real life. We find the richest nations playing a dominant role in the chessboard of the nations of the world, no matter how they accumulated their wealth and power. In the same way we notice in our immediate neighborhood those who are rich wield the biggest stick.

Similarly in matters of religion or morality it is enough to bow one’s head before a deity, Buddha or Christ or any other saint or seer but in practice one has to observe rules and conventions that are practical and are in harmony with the current norms of the society we live in. Everywhere in the world they pay only lip service to the highest moral principles proclaimed by all the religions of the world as they are generally in conflict with the basic human nature. No nation or individual can afford to follow the precepts of a great teacher in letter and spirit. Nor can one build a society based largely on a diet of spiritualism. Normally we act what we consider expedient or what suits us as members of the community.

When the times qualitatively change they require a totally new approach to the problems of life. Today even Truth is no longer absolute or eternal. It is the “cash value” of an idea. William James says, “The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief.” In short Truth is pragmatic. In such a scenario of constant change the old experience is bound to prove a handicap. It requires a new approach. The journey from the railways to the jet age of airplanes, from telephones to infotech and rockets is bewildering. So no advice of the elders or their experience of life is dependable. We must realize that everyone must bear his own cross and seek the way to his goal of life.

‘Freedom of the press usually means interference by government, but there is such a thing as interference by private interests. The fact is that a big industry owning a newspaper or a chain of newspapers cannot be said to give the press the kind of freedom public expects from it.’
- Jawaharlal Nehru