I had a teacher in Grade 12 who told us, “Everything you will ever know, you already know now. Once people hit the age of nineteen, their minds start to rigidify, and after that, nothing more can change.”
I don’t know where he got that very wrong opinion from, but he stuck to it like glue. Now we understand things differently. Neuroplasticity is real. Brains change, heal, adapt, make new synaptic connections. The more we learn, the more we can learn.
Opinions are easy to hold onto. What’s trickier is to listen, to expand our point of view, to hear others, and to see if maybe our opinions can change or evolve. We can change and grow right up until the day we die.
If that’s true, what does it say about our cultural obsession with youth? To this day, if you’re not famous by thirty, the story goes, you’re probably never going to be. And if you can’t be famous, who even are you? You may as well put yourself out to pasture, take a seat on the “obsolete” pile with all the other never-weres and used-to-wannabes.
The 60s and 70s started the trend of youth worship, although back then, the thinkers and pundits were universally grey-haired white men. Not that that was better. Now we turn instead to toned yoga teachers with YouTube and Instagram accounts, and massive-thewed gym bros who host podcasts.
They’re called “influencers.” They influence people, but only if they’re young, fresh, dewy-eyed, and good to look at. Because they look good, shiny-toothed and glowing with health, it’s assumed that they must be smarter or wiser than average. But when you really listen, they have nothing real to say.
What madness is this? Everything feels backwards these days. Maybe we’re a bunch of Dorian Greys, old and weary-eyed as children, bearing the weight of the world; then, as elders, we grow lighthearted, humming, breathing deeply through our days, learning to look at life through the eyes of innocence. We learn to be present. But we do not influence the culture.
If you listen to today’s influencers, you’ll come away with the impression that what really matters in life is how good you look on screen. Image must be managed. Some edit their images with Facetune and Photoshop; others “looksmaxx” by hitting the gym or mastering contouring with makeup–men and women alike.
Scratch a little deeper and you’ll find that what really matters is how much money you make. The more money you have, the more you matter, and the more influence you can wield. If you don’t have money, it doesn’t matter what you’ve learned from your past mistakes or how wise you are.
And yet time bestows upon us such wild and unique gifts: creativity, insight, poetic expression, our own angle of view.
The most interesting people, the ones with the most to say, say it right here, to my face, where no one else is around to listen. What a ridiculous blessing it is to be surrounded by wise, funny, experienced, self-educated, mature humans of all ages, and to have that wealth all to ourselves. No filming, no like button, just life happening right here. Just for us.
It’s not about age, youth versus elders. The people I value most have opted out of the cultural obsession with image and disposable income. I’m not othering anyone here; it’s not even about income or wealth. It’s about priorities. It’s about attitude. Do we really see and hear the people in front of us? Or are they filtered through a lens of status relative to our own?
If you live on Hornby, I suggest you necessarily pay more attention to who people are and less to how they seem. We simply don’t have the population to afford us the luxury of picking and choosing between classes of people. Each person here is a class of their own. What a privilege that is.
I am endlessly fascinated by the things people say, the wit and wisdom they drop so casually right there in the produce department, over a head of endive or a bell pepper. It makes me think. It makes me smile. It makes life excellent. Too bad there’s no “share” button.
That’s what I think. What do you think? Email me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com for feedback and for more information about the Songwriter Circle that meets at 7 p.m. every Friday evening at the Hornby Arts Centre.
