The Aged Cello

I found this little animated sequence to music by Arvo Part called The Aged Cello, you can play it here on this page below or (you can download it here). The music is melancholic befitting the instrument. However there's a strangeness I find in the title and theme which is Should aging be sad? The cello as an instrument itself has a melancholic tonal quality but valuable cellos are old and in fact age is valued in them for the better seasoned wood and sonority. This seems to reveal a Western cultural value or attitude. It also reminds me of issues I've raised in discussions about mentoring with the twenty somethings for over a year now. At core they are issues of relying on peer mentoring for significant spiritual growth rather than seeking for older and deeper experience. I have been reading for a course on critical thinking and one item struck me, intellectual humility. This trait I think is also an indicator of growth, knowing what you don't know, whether it be in academia, spiritual faith development or other aspects of our lives. This is humility, a true self-awareness when we measure ourselves either the corpus of human knowledge or even more so against the greatness of God, we discover the need for more wisdom.