Archive for December 13th, 2005

Maturity is a Virtue

I keep talking about Ole Bob and what an old man I am. This is a brag.

Since the group that calls itself The Greatest Generation took over, everybody wants to be young.

I think this started with the fact that The Greatest Generation did its bit by the time it was twenty years old and has been living on it ever since.

In earlier days maturity was what people valued. I value it and I tell younger people that I value it. A lot of young people today seem to find my attitude a relief.

I do not tell young people that I am “one of you.” What use would that be? They are surrounded by OTHER young people.

For decades older people have insisted that they are really young at heart.

The reason an older person tries to convince young folks that he is one of them is not to to prove something to them. He is trying to prove something to HIMSELF.

Which is pathetic.

These people are telling young people that they cannot deal with the fact that they are older now. They want to prove they are still young.

I don’t think there is a lot of useful wisdom in that.

I remember the 1960s when the World War II generation media commentators were glorying in the leftist hippies. They kept insisting that the young hippies were just like them

They were trying to prove something. They were trying to prove that they were still young idealists just like the Peace Generation and the Flower Children.

I kept wondering what the point was for a middle-aged man trying to show he was till young.

If you’re just like them, I thought, who needs you? What have you got to say that anybody needs to hear if the REAL young people are already saying it??

But those pathetic members of The Greatest Generation were not interested in being needed or useful, they were trying to prove to THEMSELVES that they were still young.

So how did they look to me?

I cannot get away from using the word that springs to mind: Pathetic.

Before the Pathetic… sorry I mean The Greatest Generation, what an old guy had to offer was not that he could play hopscotch better than the kids could.

What a mature person can offer young people is that he WAS young, and I remember my youth vividly. But the whole point of younger people listening to me that is important is that I am now where THEY will be someday.

I am not a fellow kid. My advice is about what a former kid should become.

No way a kid should grow up to be ME. But I can offer some perspective they can use as they mature.

I let them know up front I am not a fellow kid or an Olympic Hopscotcher.

When talking to young people my usual intro is, “When I was young I walked twenty miles to school in the snow…”

They can always finish it with, “Against the wind, right? And uphill both ways, right?”

Methinks they’ve heard it before.

But they seem to enjoy hearing it again from someone who is old and proud of it. They know exactly what is behind the joke: I’m the old guy.

Or, more to the point, I’m the man who is already where you are going to be.

A society needs adults. Our youth-obsessed society needs adults more than most.

I spent a lot of years getting to be my age and learning what I have learned.

I plan to enjoy it.

And I am determined to share it.

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5 Comments

Reply to Joe

In response to my article, “PAINFUL Nostalgia,” which described how the president of the main university in Ukraine gave Sharon and the ADL the answer that, before the group that calls istself The Greatest Generation took over, would have been considered an AMERICAN reply, Joe writes,

“Oy. Further down in the article, a paragraph reads, ‘stung by growing criticism, Ukrainian officials may finally be taking the issue seriously. President Viktor Yuschenko this week urged his country’s elites to condemn anti-Semitism and xenophobia.’I remember the US and international media screaming to change the presidential results to get this bozo in office. Is there any wonder why? ”

Comment by joe o — 12/10/2005

My reply:

Joe, what officials in Eastern Europe say is a good deal different from what they mean.

They are still very much dependent on us.

For example, Russia has the same Hate Speech Laws every other country outside the United
States has. Under those laws you can get a prison sentence just for owning David Duke’s
book “Jewish Supremacism.”

It is on sale in the Russian Duma, in Russian. Going into the subay, David and I met a
man who was selling it. It sells like hotcakes in Russia.

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Reply to Derek

In reply to my piece, “Mark’s Welcome Comment” where Mark put down the “All is lost!” crowd, Derek says,

“You are right Bob. Suffering setbacks and losing more battles than you have won doesn’t make you defeated. Only YOU make you defeated.”

“Coming from a guy that has lost 90% of the battles (no matter how small, personal, or otherwise) in his life and is still getting up everyday I know what you mean. It is hard but it is good to have someone to lead the effort too, someone who knows. ”

I wonder how many readers remember the episode on “The Twilight Zone” where a thoroughly evil man thought he had gone to heaven?

Sebastian Cabot played the man he thought was an angel, and gave him everything he had ever wanted. This guy had been a loser all his life, and suddenly he had women, a great apartment, and everythng he played at he won.

And won.

And won.

And won.

He got bored to desperation. At the end of the show he was given a pool table but as soon as he broke, every single ball went into the right pocket.

Finally he called Cabot in and said, “I can’t stand this. I don’t belong in heaven, see? If I stay here another day I’ll go NUTS. I want to go to The Other Place (Hell was not a word used on TV back then.)”

Cabot replied, “HEAVEN!? What makes you think you’re in Heaven? This IS The Other Place!”

The show ended with Cabot laughing demonically and the little evil man trying desperatelt to escape.

A life spent fighting against the odds is a real life.

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