T. S. Eliot wrote that "Old men ought to be explorers"; I take this to mean: follow curiosity, inquire into important ideas, risk transgression.4 According to the brilliant Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, "inquiry" is our nearest equivalent to the Greek alethia, an activity of mind that initiated all Western philosophizing: "an endeavor ... to place us in contact with the naked reality . . . concealed behind the robes of falsehood."
Falsehood often wears the robes of commonly accepted truths, the common unconsciousness we share with one another. A therapy of ideas could free us from the conventions that keep our minds from committing interesting transgressions. To see the force of character up close, we must become involved wholeheartedly in the events of aging. This takes both curiosity and courage. By "courage" I mean letting go of old ideas and letting go to odd ideas, shifting the significance of the events we fear. I mean the courage to be curious. Curiosity is one of the great drives of humankind, maybe of animal life in general; it's that desire to explore the world that sets the monkey and the mouse on their risky adventures. For us humans, adventure takes place more and more in the mind. This mental courage the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called the "adventure of ideas." "A thought," he said, "is a tremendous mode of excitement."6
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