Blog 2521 – 09.20.2021
The Fountain Of Youth
Legend has it that Spanish Explorer Ponce de Leon was told by the original inhabitants of the Florida peninsula of place further north that contained a fountain whose waters gave eternal youth. It turned out the story was contrived to send the invader on a wild goose chance. It was a tactic often employed by the first people to get the greedy light skinned folk to just move on and leave them alone.
Those first explorers from Spain found large cities of people living together in houses and cultivating crops when they first arrived. Hernando de Soto with six hundred men traveled throughout the southeastern part of what would much later become the United States of America. He and his men were the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River. They raped, pillaged, enslaved, and killed wherever they went and later European arrivals found no cities when they arrived only small and widely scattered villages. Hernando never found the gold he sought nor Ponce the fountain of youth, instead they brought death and destruction to the existing order that would soon be as Margaret Mitchell wrote of the new Old South, Gone With The Wind.
The vast cosmetic and dietary supplements industries are still selling the idea of a fountain of youth. But so far the Fountain of Youth remains a myth. The vitality and hopeful enthusiasm of youth does not have to wain as our bodies age and change. The secret to a youthful outlook if not the outward look is maintaining a young mind and heart. Jesus warned his disciples against allowing the old world to press them into its mold. Old thinking is what makes us act old.
The mantra of the young has long been, “Free your mind, follow your heart, and the rest will follow.” That my friends is how to stay forever young, and influence others to as well. You tell ‘em, Frank.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
Young At Heart
theencouragingword 