A few days ago, I encountered a slightly surprising, more offensive incident.
At a get-together in my son’s house, I was humming to a song playing on the Television, when a little child asked his mother “Do old people like music too?”
The child’s mother quickly apologized, and we had a small laugh on this.
The reason I am talking about it is that I still haven’t been able to shake out the child’s question out of my mind.
Do old people like music too?
As depressing this take on the elderly seems to be, I somehow find humour in it.
As I told you, I couldn’t let go of the child’s question, after the party was over, I lay thinking about it.
Why did the child assume such a thing about me, without even knowing me personally?
Keeping the child’s immaturity aside, I think his question bothered me because it pushed me to a sudden realization that the young perceive us elders as a clichés.
So I tried looking at us elders like the child.
I tried to look back into the memories of my grandfather.
Sadly and funnily, all that I remembered of him was that he was really old.
Apart from that, I remember fighting with him on his views of worship, because I felt his ways were a little outdated.
He told me the stories of his childhood, they amused me, but I always saw them to be benighted.
Unintentionally of course, as much as I loved and respected him, I associated everything that was old and outdated with my grandfather.
Here is the funny part, since now I know that the child associates whatever I do to anything that’s old and outdated, anything I do, to persuade him that I am not a cliché, is old and outdated too.
I am stuck in a vicious circle of a child’s unforgiving perception about an old man.
To me, this is a problem.
I am not sure how you plan to approach it dear reader, wherever you are, and if you see this as a problem.
But I have engineered a small experiment in my efforts to kill this cliché.
For the next two weeks I am not going to do anything that young people expect of me, as an elderly citizen.
I remember a lot of stories from my grandfather’s childhood, so to not seem like a “grandfather”, I will stop telling stories from my youth. Rather, try to engage and know what excites today’s generation.
I also remember hearing a lot of advices from my grandfather, about life, academics, friendships, etc, so to not seem like a “grandfather”, I will not give any advices from experiences of past but will make efforts to share thoughts which are contemporary.
At last, I remember my grandfather giving (a lot of) comparisons, between “those days” and “these days”, so to not seem like a “grandfather”, I will stop comparing between my childhood and the times now.
I will continue this for two weeks.
This may seem slightly radical, but I believe this will bring results.
By the end of it I plan to find a middle way, something that gives me back my individuality and something that my grandchild enjoys.
I will keep you posted.
