Sage Advice

I'm pretty exhausted today. I was up late last night with the pre-conference dinner, and then I slept poorly with a stomach ache (I assume I ate too much protein and possibly drank too much beer and wine). As a result, I missed what was reputed to be a very good talk this morning by Dr. Leonid Bunimovich. I did see a great talk by Dr. Klaus Pawelzik (which I will try to have a review of in the near future) and part of a talk by Dr. Elisha Moses (unfortunately, my narcolepsy was rearing its ugly head for that talk and I missed a lot of the middle...). Tonight at the conference dinner, however, I got a chance to hear Bunimovich speak again (which is nice, because he is a great speaker). Rather than a scientific talk, however, he was giving a birthday speech for the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization director, Dr. Theo Geisel. As part of his speech, he offered the following advice:

Life is much better after sixty, as you gain a much better perspective on life. You see, when you are a young man in your twenties walking down the street on a lovely day and you see a beautiful girl walking toward you, you enjoy the sight of the beautiful girl. However, when you are a man of sixty walking down the street on a lovely day and you see a beautiful girl and her mother walking toward you, you enjoy the sight of the girl and her mother.