wine is better aged

 

Only time can age the wine.

One can try to perfect the temperature and humidity of the wine cellar, but again, only time can age the wine. You can shake it, stir it, expose it to more sunlight, store it under the cellar's wooden boards. Whatever the case, time cannot be expedited nor rushed. Maybe there's a chemical now that can speed the process? If there is, I remain dubious to such a chemical.

You can alter the settings and properties and what not, but there is only one constant that promotes change in wine, and that is time. All other factors are probably a good indicator of what kind of wine we may end up bottling.

Still, the issue may not lie in what we end up bottling, but when. Some of us bottle it up early, before time has taken its course, and carry around our grape extracts bottled too soon in dark, opaque, expensive wine bottles with a fresh cork stuck at the top. The deception, however, only lasts up until the moment we twist out the cork and invite others for a taste. They will swirl it in their mouths and swish it around their tongues longer than the norm. Like little children, they will grin and lean to each others sides and murmur, "Is this what I think it is?" until one will raise his voice and suggest that what they are drinking may just be grape juice. Affirmative nods are shared around the room by everybody except for the once-proud owner of this exquisite-looking bottle of wine. His eyes find shame on the floor and he silently curses his soul for the impatience that led him to bottle it a decade early. "It's too sweet, too tart, too fresh," they continue on in whispers loud enough to remind him to keep his eyes glued to the floor.

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I feel like this is me. I bottle things too early. I think I'm already there, or already here. But I sit here, and I remind myself that I am far from it. I must let myself age, and not be so instantly satisfied with what and who is around me and in front of me. Let things soak in. Too often I am deceived to believe that if I surround myself with good instruction, upstanding role models, encouraging advice, life lessons, and loving friends and family then instantly this new me is born out. Maybe that's exaggerating, but its that notion to a lesser degree. Regardless, I have learned, time and time again, for it to be wrong. I must let myself age.

Or maybe, this cycle is precisely how the human soul ages.

I don't know. Yet, I do know one thing: I am an absolute fool.