lil bit, the problem (as I see it) that humans have is not being able to look into the future; not to be able to truly understand what it will be like for themselves in 10, 20, 30 years or even 1 perhaps.

I thought like you express through my 20's and was locked in the stuggle to make it work out or understand it in a way that was more "comfortable" for myself. It didn't happen. However, my life changed when I was around 34 and things did start coming together in bits and pieces and I did begin to get "wisdom" and now at the ripe old age of 57, I have enough space to look back and see that my life has come together in many places and makes "sense" to me and I'm still doing the "Oh!" response when another widget snaps into place that I wasn't expecting. My 41 year old stepson use to ask his father on his father's birthdays, "What's it like to be 50?" What's it like to be 60?" but I finally, just last year, began to realize that we can't really understand that question until we're there. I'm approaching "old" age and the experience is everything the cliches say BUT now I inhabit the cliche's and get the "jokes" whereas before they were just canned laughter?

When I turned 50, I had a friend at work who was a year or two older and she said to me, "Wait until you are 51, you start to fall apart!" Well, I was mightily amused because I felt great when I was 50, no different from 49 and kind of liked the idea of being half a century old, etc. But low and behold, I turned 51 and darned if I didn't start falling apart! Not fun. The aches come and don't go away and one's body does things "like" the old way it did things but suddenly doesn't bounce back or respond to meds like it use to and you start worrying whereas before one just put up with the cold or sore muscle, etc. It's a radically different world (and yet the same) for me now than it was 10, 20, 30 or even 1 year ago.

The sum of all I know at this point, my wisdom, is in understanding that "things change". I've lived that expression and, if you want to believe me, yes, things do happen for a purpose and do make sense. In my late 20's I had a mentor and she use to say to me, "It will be good for you in later life" when I had to do something distasteful that I didn't want to do. I grew to hate that expression but I now know, for me, it's true :-)

One can't really know what's black and what's white and what's gray when one is in the midst of it; one just gets "feelings" for where to stand so that where one stands is best for one's Self. That is truly all there is, our Selves on the inside looking out at other Selves in various states of development. Flower buds don't think, gee, I'd better not bloom because then it will be all over and I'll fade and die. I believe the other flowers "help" because you can't make a flower bed with only one flower, you need the others around to support one's weak stem and show off one's unique color, etc. Some of the flowers get the bugs or rotting disease, others get the bees, better soil and good sun and water. I wouldn't wish my rotting disease on the flower next to me would I? Mayhap my having it endangers or helps the flowers near me, I don't know. All I know is what is my own experience and I do my best to work with it, get the most out of it that is possible.

I do think there's a larger "something" going on than just my experience though. There are other things "out there" that I can't see or know, grubs :-) or fertilizer. Earlier plants, compost, help make my bed healthier and help me grow stronger. Someone messed with my genetics and I'm bug or wilt resistant or both or neither. But through it all I'm still an individual plant.

Darn, I think I hear the neighbor kid's lawn mower and I'm on the border! Watch out!