Generations

 

You sometimes hear people musing about the changes they have seen in their lifetimes. I know that in the scope of my life I have seen quite a few. When I was a child there was no internet, no cell phones. If you wanted to contact someone far away, you had to write them a letter, or, if it was urgent use a land line phone to make a long-distance call or a telegram. Both were discouraged because they cost money. For electronic entertainment we had radio and television. The television where I lived only had two channels until I was almost a teenager. Even so, many parents were worried that TV was rotting our brains. There was nothing akin to social media. You just hung out with your friends. Music has seen a lot of changes. No instant gratification in my childhood. If you wanted to hear a particular song and you didn’t own the record, you have to sit by your transistor radio tuned to your favorite station and wait for hours for them to get around to your song. I speak from experience. What? Surely, I was not the only one.

As alien as this may sound to youngish people today, the changes my grandfather saw in his lifetime make my experience pale by comparison. My grandfather was born in the 1890’s. The airplane had not been invented yet. There were no cars in his town. As he looked around his house, he would find nothing made of plastic.

Entertainment in my grandfather’s day was simpler. There was no television, not even radio when he was a child. What leisure time he had was spent reading, perhaps playing cards or other games. Marbles, jacks, dominoes. Sports existed if you were so inclined and had access to the necessary equipment. But everything, everything in my grandfather’s world was more personal. If alone, a person could read or go for walks, fish, or develop a hobby. Most likely, the only affirmations you might receive would be from your family, not from social media. Despite all that, his basic humanity was no different than mine. But what changes he saw! From horse travel, to jet travel. From the local paper as the only source of news, to cable news. This man who grew up in the 1800’s watched men walk on the moon. He saw diseases he knew from childhood being wiped out by modern medicine. When you think of the changes from the beginning of his life to the end, it seems like his whole life must have been one big shockwave. Of course, it is not really like that when you are living through it.

He saw women get the vote (who could imagine such a thing!). He learned first-hand the ugliness of war, and second-hand the ugliness of the Nazi’s. he lived through most of the Cold War, not knowing if we would all end in nuclear annihilation. But he also learned the beauty of love, of friendship, of community.

Millennials, and my generation, and my grandfather’s generation lived in different worlds. But were we really that different as people? I would like to think not, but one wonders if social media is changing society in a bad way. It is something to worry about. But, wait: every generation has its own crises, its own threat of annihilation. My grandfather had world wars and the Cold war. I had the Cold War, and pollution, the energy crisis. Millennials have climate change, AI, and social media.  

We have all learned to live with these crises. Perhaps we will weather this storm too. We are the same people after all.

Star Liner