Musings on Age, Change, Revolutions, And Wisdom
Just Wait; It’ll Happen to You, Too, Someday
As I was writing the daily rundown (two to post today), I received a notification that I’ve — my exact and unique name — now been mentioned in a total of 555 academic papers; I use three different academic publishing portals to access research papers otherwise not available directly to the public, and two of them notify members when there’s a mention of them though one uses first initial and family name, which puts me over 1,000 mentions, but I’m guessing a good portion of those aren’t actually me.
I bring it up as I found the number to be significant somehow, though not because of ‘volume’ per se, but because, albeit I get an average of one such notification every other day, I normally never pay attention to these. That I did when I’d hit a triple five had me reflecting on numbers and coincidences, which led me to consider, as I often do, just how much of our behaviour and how many aspects of our lives have been quantified thanks to the Internet, and how many businesses and services today are dedicated to keeping track of all sorts of things for advertisers if not for us — with or without our knowledge — and convincing us that it’s something we need, which eventually had me considering that if I were to compare myself with what appears to be normal behaviour, all of it betrays just how odd I really am, I suppose.
I’m content with being mentioned and believing that it’s all good, I never look up a single mention. The same goes for any reactions or retorts that may have been voiced in regard to anything I wrote here; unless someone emails me, I’ll probably never know about it. But doesn’t that, today, in a way, guarantee my own fandom failure?
One thing the Internet made me realize is how private a person I really am, and how important it is for me to compartmentalize certain aspects or, more specifically, to limit external interruptions, many coming in the form of demands in disguise, I feel; I like to kid that I specifically chose to not become a global super star because I could never deal with the public and their obsessions always interrupting me out of my thoughts or digging through my garbage. I can, however, see myself as a god. Maybe.
Which isn’t to say that I’d prefer limiting my readership, by the way, but nor do I feel like dedicating a bulk of my time towards ‘living’ a part of my life on platforms designed to bash others and elevate oneself through all sorts of tactics meant to increase one’s chances in the digital viral lottery, until a crowd’s momentum takes care of the rest.
Selling a product is one thing, converting oneself into a product is quite another. Yet, today, all is judged by one’s ability to do the latter; content has no value unless enough people like the content creator, whose easiest, 10-steps-to path to being ‘liked’ relies, for the most part, on things that have little to do with content.
I’m speaking in broad strokes, of course, and I do realize that exceptions exist, obviously, or I wouldn’t even bother; I am aware that I’ve had some positive impact, even if on a very limited scale, though with influential people. If all I’ve managed to do is being an oblique source of motivation to those who can affect real change (or a direct pain in the arse, if appropriate), then, if, indeed, my real goal is that change, shouldn’t I find contentment in that? Yes, but I’m also human, don’t forget; the god thing still isn’t confirmed, but I’ll let you know the minute the results of the lab test come in, I swear.
All of the above leads me to admit that, no matter how progressive and tech-savvy I believe myself to be, I’m “ol’ school” in too many ways that are still very much relevant today while simultaneously fast becoming irrelevant tomorrow. Our parents and grandparents and their parents all went through the same thing… universally, there comes a time when one’s joints and digestion and eyesight — and nasal and ear hairs if a man — forces one to admit that “young” refers to a group they’re no longer a member of. We’re all aware of this shift as we’re living it, but swallowing that bitter pill implies moving on to a different form of awareness.
And tech and scientific developments have, regardless of one’s age, brought us a few tippy-toed steps past the edge of a new frontier of awareness. Truly. Allowing the forces of Capitalism to fully define this new world leads all to an authoritarian corporatocracy and/or the devastating chaos of a failed new beginning; unless free of the mechanisms that generate and justify a form of widespread corruption that promotes denialism and sees value in fools, heightening the meaning of personal gain over the sense that’s expressed by all, defining an improved humanity will not be possible.
There are a lot of zoned-out and zombified young people out there, and the US system produced far too many smug-yet-ignorant semi-comatose consumers for its future’s own good — the types of people that, unfortunately, the Rightwing media exploits rather than educates — but, if one actually listens to them, doing so with full and honest cognizance of one’s place in the inevitable wheel of growth and change, what one also sees are hordes of truly bright, highly-responsible, self-propelled and group-powered slices of the younger generations; what’s perceived as their folly, albeit often linked to a lack of ‘experience’, is, I believe, more properly addressed if viewed as limitations and perspectives — one feeding the other and vice versa — that are imposed on older generations, impeding their ability to comprehend today’s youth. Simple enough; nothing ground breaking in what I’m saying.
Yet, on many key fundamental aspects, we seem to forget just how marked the difference is between the pre-Internet world we left behind and the new one being forged by the industrial revolution that the digital age has given birth to. Anyone who hasn’t experienced pre-internet days… they’re fully immersed in the new world.
The world owes it to itself; it’s time for a real hand-off; it’s time for a mindset to retreat, to let go while remaining present, providing true guidance free of greed — what’s better known as true wisdom, the type that can’t be packaged in a self-help grift or a toxic topical balm.
In this respect, the Conservative, Big-Corpo and fossil-fuel-funded media, more so than corpo-media, are doing their all to disempower younger generations in severely destructive ways. The ‘revival of the American spirit’ they claim to be doing through efforts such as those spearheaded by the likes of Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA is anything but, and it’s sure to result in much violence, at home and abroad.
Although a portion will find security in the methods they don’t, at this point, readily perceive as being simply the means by which the elite seek to impose their self-serving old-world structures of power on the new societal modes we now have the opportunity to build — meaningfully, globally — there will come a time when these individuals will no longer be able to avoid this realization.
In the meantime, focusing on that impactful mass that still serves up a fresh version of “hope”, we must ask ourselves: What can we do to rally and provide the resources to, in turn, provide the necessary resources, motivation, and guidance that will empower the young to rally forces — efficiently, politically; meaningfully — while we learn how to be their voice, stepping away from the one that speaks of our own insecurities to embrace a speech that details the intonation of collective action.
The time is now; all of ‘us’ is focused on you, because there’s nothing more powerful than ‘we’.
