Corporate Lessons from Mythology – 13

Does the desire for materialism go down with the advancement of age?

It is claimed that, philosophical mind automatically comes to you as the biological clock ticks. I read somewhere that our life span can be divided into these phases:

Age	Designated as	Our role in this period
0 – 20	Butterfly	We have colorful dreams, we do not bother for anything
20 – 40	Migratory bird	We go in search of career to better environmental destinations
40 – 60	Donkey	We bear the burden of the family
60 – 80	Snail	We slowly withdraw into a shell, looking more inwards
80 – 100	Crane	We wait for our final journey towards the eternal world

Our underlying philosophies are driven by the biological clock. Even Mahatma Gandhi attained refinement in the later part of the life. This is a natural process, isn’t it? What is there to cultivate in us? With the age, the desire for materialism and the philosophical outlook will set in. Why do we teach the youngsters on all these areas? This question was posed to me in one of the seminars on ‘Philosophy and the age’.

I replied to the young questioner this way – 

‘You are being over-simplistic in everything that you see. Your outlook is not driven only by biological clock. Even at a very young age, Gandhi struck to the set of values that he believed in. He never lied in his legal profession just to mint money. He did not pursue conviction towards values only in later stages of his life. He stuck to his values throughout his life.

The philosophical outlook is not directly proportional to the age profile today. Infact it is inversely proportional in many cases. For example, Politicians above 70 are very actively amassing wealth today. No one wants his school going child to know the extra money he generates through wrong means.