Greybeards

When I was a young man, the greybeards would stand together talking whilst we waited to hear what they had decided. This was the right way of things and, if I sometimes wished that the balance of influence was weighted more in my favour, I had the consolation of knowing that, one day, I would be a greybeard myself and that my own words would then carry the weight of accumulated wisdom.

But now that my beard is grey, I find that the young people do not care to hear the words of their elders and, if they were ever to worry about their own drift into inconsequence (which worry I do not believe troubles them), they would have the consolation of having spent their own portion of time in the Sun. Whereas I find that I have passed from promise to regret without ever having achieved a position of recognition for myself.