Well, there are highly practical lessons, such as "Shortcuts make long delays..." :-)

Then there are more significant concepts to chew on. For example, my position on the death penalty has changed over the years. When I was young I was ardently opposed -- I had much more faith in humanity than I do now, I suppose. After having lived awhile, my opinion changed. But through it all, whether in the passion of my youthful ideals or the sobriety of my middle aged concessions, one phrase which came into my mind over and over and over again, was the words of Gandalf to Frodo regarding Gollum (From memory, please excuse any slight inaccuracies):

*****
Frodo: It was a pity Bilbo didn't kill him while he had the chance.

Gandalf: Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and mercy, not to kill without need.

Frodo: But he deserved death!

Gandalf: Yes. And some who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so quick to meet out death.
******

Finally, there are what I call the deep structures. These are the patterns of existence that we first learn in story, then become more effecient in recognizing in life, and then finally cultivate the ability to include them in our intuitive decisions. I am speaking of such things as the paradoxical irony that what is small and meek will often bring down the mighty. Or that one must go into the darkness to bring back the treasure. Or that evil will bend over backward to find and destroy that which can do the most good -- whoa that's one I've really held onto over the summer, because of a serious betrayal I had to deal with last spring, and my doubts about whether I want to stay in teaching, when I seem highly inclined to auto destruct in response instead of fighting back and staying the course...

Oddly, this discussion brings up my choice for my alias: Galadriel, the oracle of the mirror. I have what I describe to skeptics as envisionings and to believers as visions. Not things I see with my eyes, but powerful, extremely vivid, and very often accurate imaginings. They can be of things past, present or future. Those of you that are familiar with the Meyers Briggs Temperament Inventory will understand what I mean when I identify myself as an Idealist (aka iNtuitive Feeling temperament) subtype Mentor/Counselor (aka INFJ). But I prefer to call my visions "iNtuitings" and I certainly don't claim to be psychic. First of all, "psychic" smacks of those con artist phone lines, and I want to distance myself from those lowlifes as much as possible. But also because if someone were truly psychic, their visions would always be accurate, and quite frankly, I make mistakes. More to the point, my visions work almost identical to the description of Galadriel's mirror: sometimes the things I see come true, sometimes by avoiding them I cause them to happen, sometimes by pursuing them I stop them from happening, and sometimes they just simply and inexplicably don't happen. Having been raised from birth by skeptical parents in a highly skeptical culture, I had been taught NOT to trust my "feelings" or "instincts" or "intuition." This was extremely invalidating and harmful to my psyche. Reading of Galadriel's mirror gave me something back: the right to intuit without the necessity of always being correct, the confidence and the courage to develop my gift rather than to cripple it, the freedom to be who I was and am. I can't think of a better gift.

Blessings,

Galadriel