After the last post I wrote, on allowing yourself to drift and having blind faith in it all amounting to something in the end, Joe sent me a text:

“We’re extremely funny btw”

Love that sarcasm. Ok, we may have been overdoing it with the introspection, and yes, presenting this side of ourselves to the world is rather atypical, but this is the last introspective post for a while. I promise.

Came across this Ze Frank video, and as always, he touched a nerve.

I know some people will want to slap me for entertaining thoughts about aging and becoming irrelevant because I’m two weeks shy of my 24th birthday, and who am I to think I understand it, and why aren’t I busy living my youth to its fullest, and… shut up. When I was six years old I would get so scared of aging that I would cry loudly in the middle of the night, and complain to my mom and grandmother that I’m scared of getting old and dying. I still remember the “help me, I’m fucked!” look my mom gave her mother the first time I said that. Sorry, mom.

But Ze got me thinking about how I can avoid feeling irrelevant after 40 more years. It’s a particularly captivating thought because I’m immersed in an industry which celebrates youth and is really not nice to older people, who tend to be dismissed as a bit stale and repetitive, like that older uncle everyone listens to only because they don’t want to break his heart. Man, we’re undercover dicks at times, myself included. I find myself smiling and nodding and affirming older people in my industry while feeling sorry for them. For being so sure of themselves when they know so little. For wanting to teach younger people, and leave a part of themselves behind, while being passively smiled out of the room. Holy shit, is this the kind of reaction I’ll cause in people 40, 50 years from now?

This got me thinking.

“Be nice to older folks,” or How to Escape The Terrifying Fear of Irrelevance In 3 Easy Steps

1. Do unto others, blah blah blah…

First of all, I realized I need to be kinder, starting right now. Not sure how I’ll go about it, but I have to find a way to stop pitying the older people I meet at events. Practice makes permanent.

2. Be tough on the variables

Second, I need to take out age from the equation. It can’t be that what bothers me about these older professionals is their age in isolation. It’s some common set of qualities they tend to have that makes me respect them less. I need to identify those qualities and force myself to notice them in younger people. Being specific about this will also help me be less annoying myself when I’m older. For starters, I’m guessing that what sets me off is when people offer unsolicited advice. Older people seem to do that more often, but there’s probably no correlation between that trait and age.

3. Resolve to age into a life of awesome

And third, I need to have a plan for what kind of life I want to lead in 20 years. Clarity makes fear manageable. The type of older person I have always admired was in the role of a professor who teaches foundation courses, such as history or mathematics. Some eternal subject that isn’t subject to trends, is universally important to understand, and requires a true mastery to teach. I’ve always said this, but I would love to teach when I’m older. That’s it, I’ll be a kick-ass statistics professor at some New England school. I’ll also be really, really good at some craft, like calligraphy, and hang out with Joe drinking cappuccinos, yelling at dogs, hanging around parks, and snacking on citrus until we see our last sunset.

Whew, I feel better already.