The Elasticity of a Generation
When I was 18, I got a tattoo at my first New Orleans Mardi Gras. Back then, only scary bikers had tattoos. When people glimpsed what I had done, I heard audible intakes of breath, and one friend (a medical student) had a reaction that might have been mistaken for an epileptic seizure.
My own mother’s initial response to the little butterfly on my left shoulder was disdain, but later she softened and thought it would be cool when I was an old lady.
I am now, by some measures, an old lady, and tattoos are everywhere. Mine is minuscule by comparison to most. My Aussie daughter has several. And when my Alzheimer stricken mother saw a rather large wildcat on my daughter’s thigh, she couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. She wasn’t repulsed, she just couldn’t take it in. It was—unbelievable. It caused some sort of cognitive overload.
But even before Mom’s dementia set in, she was having a tough time. The computer was a “friggin’ nuisance.” She owned a credit card but rarely used it, preferring to pay for everything in cash. She couldn’t keep up with the pace of change.
The last few times Mom accompanied me to a grocery store, she was astounded when I stuck a debit card into a machine, pressed numbers on a keypad and voila — groceries were paid for. And when I talked to Siri in her presence, well, it was akin to having a tiger tattoo across my chest.
When I was a teen, my grandfather protested my listening to the Beatles. In his thick Lithuanian accent he’d scold, “What is this ‘hello hello good-bye goodbye?’ You call that music?” I didn’t take him too seriously. He was old. Out of touch.
But in his lifetime, he witnessed the proliferation of the automobile, telephone, airplane, and television. He saw a man walk on the moon. He watched his native land move in and out of Russian/Soviet rule. He, himself, made the journey across the ocean to begin a new life in America. Maybe his mental file cabinet was full.
I recently heard a couple of grown men (both are grandfathers) arguing about climate. One had a firm belief that human behavior could, did, and does affect the world’s climate in a detrimental way. The other was certain that governments had the ability to control the weather.
It inspired me to read a bit about why conspiracy theories take hold. According to the American Psychological Association, people are “… motivated to believe in conspiracy theories by a need to understand and feel safe in their environment…” It’s possible one of these gentlemen was operating on overload and needed something to cling to.
I, myself, took a long time to warm to the smart phone, and now I like having it. But I don’t use it to capacity. I know it can do things I don’t ask it to do. I don’t ask because it boggles my mind.
The advent of Instagram, Tik Tok, and Twitter (now known as X) raced by my peripheral vision. And more recently I’ve learned about social media “influencers,” who change the way people view the world. Marketers for the latest movements and merchandise. I avoid them.
The mental bandwidth of each generation gets stretched, sometimes to the breaking point. It’s apparently the nature of progress. (And perhaps explains rampant retrogression on the parts of many legislators.)
I do have viable brain cells left in my intellectual wallet, but must choose carefully what to spend them on. The choices are overwhelming.