Wisdom is a comforting myth we tell ourselves to justify the passing years. After almost six decades of life, thirty years in tech, and one philosophy degree "useful for exactly nothing," I've reached a startling conclusion: nobody gets wiser. We just get older and mistake survival for understanding.

The dirty secret about aging? It doesn't automatically make you wiser—it just gives you more data points on human stupidity. When my nephew asked if I had it all "figured out by now," I had to laugh. At 57, I'm still spending hours trying to cancel subscriptions I don't remember signing up for. The real difference between 25 and 57 isn't wisdom; it's being too tired to pretend otherwise. Those profound-sounding insights from older people? Often just fatigue disguised as enlightenment. We don't engage in political arguments anymore not because we've transcended them, but because we're exhausted by the cycle of explaining why systems are broken.

What appears as wisdom is frequently just adaptation to limitations. Can't remember names? Call everyone "buddy." Processing slower? Nod thoughtfully and occasionally say things like "we should consider the broader implications" until the conversation moves on. The performance of wisdom—speaking slower, more deliberately, using phrases like "in my experience"—creates an illusion of knowledge where there's often just confusion. Perhaps the only authentic insight aging provides is recognizing that everyone is confused, nobody admits it, and those who seem most confident are usually the most lost. As I approach 60, I've earned the right to be wrong with authority—but that's not wisdom, it's just what happens when you live long enough to see the same mistakes repeated by new people who think they're different.