Does older mean wiser?

Someone asked me this question at my 50th birthday dinner recently.

I don't know if it had anything to do with the tin foil hat I was wearing but I said sure, we are definitely much wiser than you 30-somethings! She must have sensed I was as unconvinced with my answer as I was with the deliciousness of the nasi briyani I was having because they all laughed politely.

Well I honestly don't know the answer to that question, considering that behind most problems plaguing my country, I would find a bunch of old men and women. So how can I convince myself that age follows wisdom hand in hand?

What I do notice is that sometimes, age does more to harden one's conviction than moderate it. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, they say. Maybe that's because people like us have a stubborn tendency to cling to old ways. As far as we're concerned, these are gospel truths, sacred and unchangeable.

What a rude shock we get when we discover how time cuts through our cherished wisdoms like a knife through planta.

When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me to come inside the house before dark, a piece of advice that echoes in my mind to this day. In those days, we lived in an old hut by the jungle fringe where tigers used to roam at night. Mother used to tell me ghost stories just to scare me so I would not wander out and play after dark.

The realities have changed. Where the tigers once roamed, we have the busy roads of a bustling township. Confining oneself indoors after dark seems silly with all the neon lights flashing out there, yet mother still urges me to be careful of the dark.

Keeping an outdated belief or two is harmless, even helpful in building character but clinging to a whole raftful of them and treating them as your survival guide, now that can hardly be called wise.

I think part of wisdom is to be able to ask ourselves if we are wise.

The question I would throw back is, how many elder people are wise enough to ask themselves that question.