Most people tended to conflate age with experience.
They blindly assumed that youth was synonymous with impulsiveness, irritability, and recklessness, while one-sidedly equating old age with steadiness, conservatism, and excessive caution.
But in truth, what was truly closely tied to "experience" was not years idly squandered, but firsthand encounters and personal trials!
—Only those who had witnessed prosperity decline understood the wisdom of knowing when to stop; only those who had endured upheaval and change understood the danger of failing to eradicate evil completely.
Those who remained trapped in information cocoons, with no practical experience and capable only of empty talk that harmed the nation, would merely stand safely on the shore and make clever remarks, gossip, and mock these principles of "balancing opposites" and "apparent contradictions." They ridiculed the wisdom summed up by their predecessors as nothing but opportunistic words that swung from side to side without principles.
Why did such people harbor these prejudices?
Because they had never truly encountered the kind of complex situation where success required considering different circumstances...
Or perhaps they had already crossed the river themselves and, to keep those behind them from catching up, wanted to tear down the bridge. Using words as weapons, they deliberately sought to block this path.
Ultimately, whenever we needed to judge whether certain views were right or wrong, or even prepared to internalize them as our own code of conduct, we should never let emotions carry us away and blindly, impulsively choose a side.
Because people could only remain objective to the greatest extent before they declared their own views!
Only before they were captured by the false sense of security manufactured by the collective could they determine whether the future others painted was truly what their hearts desired!
Only before paying sunk costs could they rationally