The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.
Madness string 44327
The idea that people automatically mellow or gain wisdom as they age is such a crock. People who are critical thinkers, open to experience and willing to accept that they are occasionally wrong may achieve it, but in my experience and observation, most people seem to get stuck in increasingly rigid patterns of thought and behaviour as they get older.