Uneven Starting Lines

I walked this morning with a friend who is my daughter's age. Her 5 and 3-year-olds were at school, so we only had the baby in a stroller, and our two leashed dogs to accompany us. This section of the greenway was new to me, right along the river, marshes on both sides, every shade of green imaginable, even on an overcast day. While I was blown away by the natural beauty, she was caught up in all the busyness and problems of keeping a young family together and trying to have a career at the same time.

I enjoy my younger friends, the women I went through Montessori training with and taught beside. It does me good to spend time together, and when we do, we talk non-stop. They're still in the thick of it. I wind up feeling grateful that I was able to walk away from my cherished profession at the time I did. It doesn't sound like things are getting any better in the teaching world.

From this end of the continuum, I'm repeatedly surprised by how much my age and life experience color the world. For instance, I was listening to something on NPR. It was an interview about emerging technologies and it sounded like science fiction to me.  I thought about how different the world is now from when I first crawled out of my crib. 

The combination of human and robotic intelligence that was being discussed literally did not make sense to me. I don't live under a rock. I try to stay reasonably well informed. But it reminds me of reading the tech section in a magazine 25 years ago. A telephone in your pocket wherever you go? What about the cord? The level of artificial intelligence that was being discussed on NPR was beyond me. I felt like one of those cartoon characters who runs off the cliff and continues to run in thin air. Nothing to hold me up.

Which fed the realization ---- AHA! ---- that's why the older generations have to die off and make room for the new ones. Yes, we still have a lot to offer. No, we're not entirely used up. But the innovation and progress reside, by and large, in younger minds that are more in sync with the world today. 

That sounds dismissive, I know, but think about it. I had to actually see and use a cell phone before I understood the concept. When I was a kid, we had one phone, connected to the wall, and it was a party line shared by several other households. People born in the last 15 years have never known a world without wireless technology. Our starting points are radically different. That's just a small, discrete example. While technology is visible and obvious, it's not all there is.

When people who are now in their 60s and 70s were born in the US, Jim Crow laws were in full force in the south, and women rarely held any positions of power. Even though we've lived through, and to a large degree powered the changes that have transformed the face of this country, that grounding is still in evidence. It was the starting point. Not only were discriminatory laws on the books, they were accepted as the natural order of things by many people, some of whom are still alive today. 

Folks in their forties now, who still feel like they are twenty-something, are beginning to realize that it's not the same world they were born into, either. It's startling when you first see that about yourself, especially when you say things your parents said, or wonder what in the world 'those kids' are talking about/listening to/wearing. It's a necessary and unavoidable truth that no matter how much you might stay hip, slick, and cool, you're not. At some point you will become that eccentric or sweet or grumpy or curmudgeonly or boring old person that younger folks kiss on the cheek and dismiss. You're out of it. And probably just as glad.

THANK GOODNESS! I wouldn't have had the foresight to arrange the system that way. See, most of the time I want to hang around forever, just to find out what happens next. But if we had our great-great-greats looking over our shoulders all the time, it would be so much harder to bring fresh new ideas into the square and put them to use. 

Bring it on, young'uns! Robotics, artificial intelligence, labor-saving devices ---- give us what you've got or can imagine. We'll whisper in your ears to help you remember what else is important --- fairness and justice, taking care of the babies, keeping nature intact, minding your manners, showing love and kindness. But sail ahead and don't worry about us. We're doing what we're supposed to, as well.