On 27 Aug 98, Brett Lorenzen wrote:
> *chuckle* Not entirely sure it's generational. Education comes more to
> mind. I can go toe-to-toe with my grandmother on most events in the
> 1940s, and can probably cover more fringe stuff from my mom's generation
> than she can. Most of my friends tend to be of such varied interests as
> well . . . a BA (and perhaps growing up with Trivial Pursuit) will tend to
> do that to you.
Mm... it's long been my contention that the majority of people stop
maturing, to any important degree, by about age 25 or so. For most of
us, that's been enough time to earn a living for awhile, have a few
romantic heartbreaks, get an education, accumulate some debts. After
that it tends to be more of the same-old same-old.
So... it's been my experience that thereafter age doesn't make a great
deal of difference; I know some winsomely wise and amusing young people
of that generation, and some pig-stupid pains in the butt who at 65 or 70
are very much "old enough to know better", thanks.
My criterion for enjoyable acquaintances is not age, nor profession, nor
education necessarily, but rather -- how to put it? -- the verve and depth
with which they live their lives. I find anyone of any age who has a real
passion for something -- an art, a hobby, a trade, whatever -- to be good
company; those (the large majority, sadly) who are merely content to
earn their middle-class salary and commute home on time to watch
"Friends" and "The Simpsons" each night -- who live their lives without
*verve* -- are of little interest to me.
(Passion should not be confused with obsession, of course. Collectors of
various sorts often fall into this latter camp, because after awhile it
becomes the sheer process of acquisition that drives them, any initial
passion for the thing being collected having long since dissipated (if it ever
existed at all.) Ditto people who can't enjoy a sporting match except to
reduce it to pages of numbing statistics.)
As for the obvious and amusing generational differences -- "is it true that
Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?", that sort of thing -- well,
that's age-old I suppose. I found it hard to grasp that my father spent his
early days as a Depression-era farm kid without electricity or (obviously)
television; my kids look perplexed when I try to explain how, yes we had
TV when I was little, but there was only one channel and it was black and
white; and how computers were mysterious room-sized machines that only
big corporations could afford to own. And on it goes.
(Flash-forward -- It's the year 2028, and my daughter Rachel is chatting
with her own daughter: "Oh yes dear, we had computers and the net
back then, but nothing like we have now; why, I remember playing on your
grandpa's computer when I was your age, and the screen was flat like an
old-fashioned TV, if you can believe it -- no holograms back then. And we
had to dial up over the telephone lines with a "modem" back then, and
even a plain picture would take forever to appear on those old flat
screens... you had to use a "keyboard" or a "mouse" to do everything,
there was hardly any VoiceRec or ThoughtSense technology back then...
goodness, seems a long time ago now!"
And so on :)
-----------
Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done
directly from our website for all our lists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
