Editor’s Letter – July 2019
Certain industries seem to create different contexts for age. I have a feeling that if I was working in an engineering firm that specialized in producing hand copper spooled 3 phrase electric motors for industrial lathes, that at 40, I would be one of the workplace young-uns. I imagine that my senior colleagues might rib me for whatever newfandangled inventions that they associated with my age group. Things that they might consider a fad and symptomatic of all the dalliances of a soft younger generation. Like the transistor, or that “ePod” thing. I would smile it off with polite disregard while my eagerness to learn from their knowledge, experience, and just basic time on this Earth, would trump everything else.
In the world of media things, as you can imagine things are a little bit different. In this world, we celebrate youth. To be old does not necessarily make for good Instagram and in that world, even 27 is pushing things. At 40, you may we well be decrepit. One of my “very funny” Gen Z colleagues does actually make a point of warning me that my kneecaps could give way at any moment. I do smile, because I remember what it was like to think that you would never start growing old.
It does seem a waste, though, that age in some senses and in some contexts brings with it a sense of disposal. In many cultures, this is not actually the case. Many cultures have wisdom and insight and reverence associated with age. In his book, Come of Age, Stephen Jenkinson talks about the fact that we have more of an ageing population than ever before, but fewer elders than ever before because as a society, we just seem to put our old people into a corner while we get back to updating our social feeds.
At the same time though, he warns the wisdom is not just something that comes by virtue of age. I don’t think that the transference of knowledge just needs to happen in one direction also. There have been plenty of people from any number of generations that have done some not very bright things. As silly as I think Gen Z-ers can sometimes be, I can’t really blame them for creating an industrial complex that has resulted in the depletion of rainforests and floating islands of plastic in the Pacific. In fact, it seems to be those in that generation that are most likely to make the changes required for us to not bugger up the planet so much. Hopefully, by the time they have saved the world and settle down at the rest home at the ripe old age of 35, they also have an audience to pass on their knowledge to in the generation that follows them.
