A Question for the Aged

Because there are so damn many of them living up here, it's nearly impossible to go anywhere public and not have old people talk to me.

Part of that, of course, might be because I, myself, am an old person and they feel some sense of kinship, or it just might be that they want to talk. Unfortunately, what they most often bring up is how much better things used to be, as if that's some novel concept or a recent discovery they've made.

It is, rather, the most obvious thing in the world and has been so for as long as humans have been aging, but never mind that. They mention it, and I'm never quite sure why.

The most disturbing part of hearing that bromide is that the person uttering it rarely wants me to say anything other than "yep," or nod in agreement, leading me to think it's not so much an attempt to provide me with any information but more like some secret password that's used to determine whether or not I'm in the club.

What the people proclaiming it do not want to do is talk about its implications, which (naturally) is invariably my reaction. I immediately go through, and discard, three possible responses:

1.  Agree, and point out that all these changes happened on our watch
2. Agree, and sadly shake my head while saying "and we let it happen."
3. Agree, look down, and mumble something about how we caused it

I've never used any of these, in part because I'm afraid to and also because I've convinced myself that I'd hear back something about filthy liberals, commies, hippies, or non-white people. Any of those would only make me sadder and feel even worse.

The world is different than the one I grew up in. I'm not convinced that most of the perceived differences stem from the fact that when I was growing up, I was a kid. Naturally things are better when you're a kid. Not only don't you know what's really going on and have, as your main task, to play and learn and grow, but you're a child!

So, not only is my view of the world I grew up in skewed toward wonderfulness, it's incomplete. Maybe everyone else can, but I can't possible compare the world when I was busy eating dirt and tormenting ants to the one I now find myself in.

Yes, it's changed, and I have no idea how different it would have been to grow up now instead of then, and I'm in no position to be able to make value judgements about which is better. It wouldn't matter, anyway, the world is what it is as the young folks say. It always has been and always will be.