People are always full of advice for those who have already done something. Why is it not, they ask, some other, simpler, newer, more traditional, clearer and yes cheaper thing?
“Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,
Wearing out life’s evening gray;
Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell,
Where is bliss, and which the way?
Thus I spake; and speaking sigh’d;
Scarce repress’d the starting tear;—
When the smiling sage reply’d—
Come, my lad, and drink some beer.”
Samuel Johnson | “Lines on Thomas Warton’s Poems”