Vichyssoise

I will never do it in my life because it's wrong.

That's just your opinion. Have you ever heard this? - "It's unbecoming of young men to utter maxims." It's from a philosopher from ancient times.

What does it mean?

It means young people should not make statements like that without having essentially and thoroughly tested them on two things - Reason and Experience. In other words, without thinking it through and without having gone through the situation in context oneself. However, there are certain situations which lie exclusively in the domain of Morality and doesn't necessarily need a first-hand "experience", but then it needs that much rigorous supplementation on the Reason front. Only after that, the case for "opinions as convictions" holds. But we won't wander in that realm for this present purpose. We'll stick to, "You are young and you don't utter maxims, non-exclusive to Morality, so to speak."

Fair. But that doesn't quite make the distinction clear between young and old. When is one considered old enough?

When the count of one's real experiences become more than one's mere opinions.

And how to keep these counts?

You don't have to. Experience takes care of it.

I'm confused.

You are young. And drifting from the point.

OK. What did you mean by "real experiences" and "mere opinions"?

Experiences are what one collects as one moves along the path of life. It's what he comes out with, from situations, having entered those situations empty-handed or with certain amount of knowledge and opinions. Anyhow, all that collected treasure is your real experience. "Mere opinions" or just opinions, on the other hand, are what one forms about a second-hand situation based on those collected experiences (some people do use Reason as well, some don't), as a substitute to the still uncollected experiences. But only for so long. It's good to have opinions about as many things as possible, on as wide as possible range of subjects but they should always be left in a free, flexible, transitory state so as to keep them from changing into unbending "convictions" without having gone through the two essentials I mentioned earlier.

Reason and Experience.

Always. Furthermore, opinions have their origins in experiences (collected by some and passed on to others) and experiences are the opinions gone through a process and transformed over a period of time. It's like the relation of a shoot and a branch of a tree. A shoot comes out of a branch and grows into a branch.

So, it's when the count of your experiences exceed your mere opinions that you cross over from being "young" to the "old". It's then when you become qualified to utter those so called maxims. Having acquired the wisdom from concrete, first-hand intercourse with similar specific situations. It is any time better than having drawn it from imaginative or passive media. And reliable.

So what should the young people do until they don't get qualified enough?

So long as you are young, you just need to be wary about not mistaking those opinions as some unchangeable, carved-in-stone principles that'll govern the course of your life ahead. There shouldn't be anything water-tight or inflexible about them. And though you are bound to find your opinions in conflict with others', it should be You yourself who's willing to challenge and change them first.

What about you? Are You old?

No. But I'm the young man who doesn't utter maxims without...you now know what.