Doing all the dumb things

Do we actually get any wiser as we grow older?

When you look at our world run by old men, the evidence gauge does seem to sit firmly in the negative.

Starting a war you can’t finish would sit pretty highly on singer Paul Kelly’s list of dumb things you’ve done. So would dreaming of the good old times while turning the present into a nightmare.

We all have a list of dumb things we’ve done, even if they’re not as calamitous as the things being done by world leaders.

I once shook a tin of white gloss paint in the loungeroom without checking the lid was on tight. Yes, I know, I know.

Yes, it took me two days to clean the carpet and the sofa. And yes, it took three months to get rid of the smell of turpentine.

But I didn’t start a war.

I was young and impulsive and in love and I was keen to show that I wasn’t just a dreamer with no practical skills.

When I was even younger and equally impulsive but not in love, I tried to retrieve a shilling coin from a single bar electric heater with a knife.

Yes, it was switched on, and even though the explosive shock was powerful enough to hurl me across the lounge room and blow all the fuses in the house, I did, mysteriously, survive intact.

So it seems the gods are forgiving and occasionally, they do smile on stupidity.

As I grew older, my list of dumb things grew with longer repercussions. I bought lemon cars, started lemon relationships, mixed drugs and alcohol, showed off on motorcycles, fell off stage in a band, dyed my hair red, sold property just before the boom, bought terrible shoes which gave me bunions and I bought a Harley-Davidson.

But I think I’ve lived long enough now to look back on all the dumb things I’ve done with a certain forgiveness.

Nevertheless, there is one thing I still mentally slap myself for doing, even though it’s been half a century since I did the dumb thing.

I’m a vinyl record man and every time I rifle through my collection I search for records I don’t have any more.

When I was a student in my early 20s, I got into the habit of selling off records to buy important things like beer and terrible shoes.

I sold off all my Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Yes, and Emerson Lake and Palmer records because I thought they weren’t cool any more, that punk was the new music, and I decided I needed more terrible shoes.

I am still in denial about this because every time I go to put Led Zeppelin on my turntable, I realise it’s not there because I sold them all 50 years ago.

But here’s the remarkable thing.

I listened to Jethro Tull on Spotify the other day and it was terrible.

It was like listening to a whiny medieval folk tune through a biscuit tin.

What this has taught me is that the past is never as good as you remember because your present keeps changing.

I’m not the same person I was in my 20s because life has taught me new things, and I’m still learning.

But am I any wiser?

I don’t know, but my shoes are more comfortable.

John Lewis is a former reporter at The News.