We were smarter then than those our age are today.

We wanted to learn everything we could. I don’t think we were in any real hurry, but we had inquisitive minds.

There were no shortcuts like Wikipedia and Google.

Imagine, there weren’t even mobile phones, but, like sponges, we absorbed pretty much everything around us, and somehow found our way around the block.

School might have helped build friendships and taught us certain skills, but it was experiencing that big new world out there that prepared us for the world we inherited from our parents and explored and learned who and what everything was about including ourselves.

Often, I think that this is one of many things that’s wrong with the world today, where, because of all the technology available at our fingertips, nearly everyone seems to think that they already know everything when they haven’t been to the school of Real Life.

I meet people- those older people-who run companies, organisations and businesses and I see who they’ve hired to be on their teams, and think, “Jeez, no wonder what you’re producing is so unoriginal, because you don’t only know how to lead and you’re bluffing your way through life”.

It must be a bloody horrible way to live when you’re conning yourself every morning you wake up by wondering what mask to wear and where you left off things the day before.

I often think how my mother and father knew what they did when they were only stenographers in Ceylon and the world was still in the fifties. But by having his own radio programme where he sang and played the piano, I watched and listened to my father and learned to enjoy the music of everyone from the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Errol Garner to the songs from Tin Pan Alley and the singing voices of Sinatra, Ella, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan etc.

This was before making that huge leap and finding myself discovering the music of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, not to mention being almost reborn after listening to the Beatles.

It was their second album that really hit home, especially the voice of John Lennon on “All I’ve Gotta Do” and Paul singing and playing bass on “Hold Me Tight” and George covering Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven”.

This was another huge slice of schooling right there- four young lads from Liverpool, who seemed older at the time, recording their own songs- and playing their own instruments.

My best friend in school Steve, who was a phenomenal musician we lost when he was in his twenties, and who sadly never got to meet the girl I married, he and I went on journeys of self discovery without even knowing it.

Other than walking around our lunch breaks in school speaking in a Liverpudlian accent and having become fans of the Goons, because of the Beatles love of offbeat humour and their records that were produced by George Martin who was to become known as the Fifth Beatle, Steve and I explored life and learned as we went along about so many things.

There was nothing we regretted experimenting with and pretty much being alone together. We really didn’t know better and sometimes ignorance is bliss. It’s creative freedom.

Were we smarter then than those our age are today? Definitely.

Real life experiences give one a third eye and this third eye stays with you forever and helps you see through what isn’t there.

Or what isn’t there until it is like knowing that the Walrus was Paul.