No, the fault is much rather with you young men. For indeed, we old folk, when we see young men playing, are only too eager and ready to join their play.
Much more, if I saw them thoroughly awakened and eager to share my studies, should I be eager myself to take my studies seriously too.
It is uncomfortable and unpopular to say it, and yet it is important to be reminded of our vanities: so much of the work we do is hardly work at all, but rather only busywork.
There are the few who help to provide the things we need, and then there are the many who create new tasks and positions for themselves, so that they might feed their sense of self-importance. These are the ones who spend their energies on advancement in Rome, in whatever time or place they happen to live.
And as inconvenient as it may at first appear, it is my responsibility to resist that temptation. There may be a nagging urge to want to become an important man, when all I really need to worry about is trying to become a good man.
When I see it all around me, it is so easy either to submit, or to just wish to go back to sleep. Nor will there be any benefit from stewing in anger, or scheming my sweet revenge, because then I have myself become the very thing I claim to despise.
Yes, it frustrates me when I look at the organizational chart for an institution I have grown to love, where there are dozens of vice presidents, directors, and managers crowded at the top, while those who get the actual job done are down in one of the bottom corners.
Yes, I do sometimes wonder whether the politicians, board members, or bishops are even aware of how their power games affect the lives of real people.
Still, no good ever comes from pointing fingers, and the only way to even start making the world a bit better is by starting to make myself a bit better. We never make other people to be who they are, though we most certainly influence other people to choose who they are.
I could blame the old men, for example, whether they are in their granite banks or their ivory towers, for having failed us, though I am forgetting that they are as likely to imitate the young as the young are to resent the old. I am still relatively young, and so I have it within myself to contribute my own vitality. Instead of saying how wrong they are, have I encouraged any of them to follow what is right?
I am also old enough, however, to know that age has a way of making us feel irrelevant. Is it any wonder that an old man loses heart, when the young man pays no attention to him? If he saw the young man driven to improving his own character, instead of lying around or tilting at windmills, might he be inspired to share something of what he has to offer?
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