Hermit Diary, Montreal. 5. Age and Wisdom

Two friends in Mexico City, 2016

I'm sure that most of us who are older have been dismayed by incidents and expressions of ageism since this epidemic started. To have to add these micro- and macro-aggressions to our own sense of increased vulnerability seems particularly bruising. When a friend told me that he had heard a young person calling the virus the "Boomer Remover" I literally felt like someone had just hit me. I was also dismayed, this past weekend, to see bars and brunch spots teeming with young people who either hadn't gotten the message about social distancing, or were deliberately flaunting it. And that wasn't just here: a friend in Europe wrote that there had been a moral outrage directed at his country’s "urbanized under-30 cool set, when it was revealed that lots of these people flaunted the curfews with 'F*%# Corona' parties in bars that were ordered closed."

On reflection, I've tried to temper my own instinctive reaction by thinking about the kind of world an under-30 person has inherited. While we praise the idealism and activism of many young people, there are some who are in it merely to maximize pleasure and profit for themselves, and still others who cannot make sense out of a world that, even before the present situation, they perceived as hopelessly polarized, dangerous, disintegrating, and devoid of opportunity. Drug and alcohol dependency is one possible reaction; nihilism is another; despair, depression and even suicidal thoughts are others.

Plenty of young people are not like that, and are certainly not wishing for this virus to cull everybody they consider "old." Maybe they were brought up differently, to be less self-centered; maybe they've been blessed with greater emotional stability; maybe they've had older family members, teachers, mentors and friends who took a genuine interest and helped give them the vital grounding anyone needs in order to become a full and responsible adult, taking their place in a world that has never been safe and secure for everyone. I'd fervently like to hear from younger people who may be reading this: please tell us how the world seems to you in this precarious moment.

Like Premier Francois Legault -- who spoke out to young Quebecers, saying he remembered being young and not wanting to listen to older people, but that this was not the time to have a party, it was a time for all of us to consider one another -- I too thought back to my own childhood and young adulthood. My father was a veteran of WWII, which had ended only a few years before I was born; every adult I knew had lost friends and family in that conflict. I grew up in America during the Cold War, when civil defense drills were a normal occurrence; I was completely convinced that my life would probably end in the blast of a nuclear bomb. After that came Vietnam, which tore the country apart, saw college students my age shot on campus, and had every young male in the country eligible to be called up in the draft. Many who served died; others were left with varying degrees of trauma; others left and went to Canada, or went to jail, or maimed themselves; some (both veterans and not) fell into the same despair and dead-end solutions as I mentioned above. There was a massive "generation gap." During those same years, many of us became early activists for the climate and ecology, choosing to live alternative lifestyles to try to maintain some integrity with our beliefs. And right after that came the AIDS epidemic, which cut down some of the brightest and best people we had known... Since then there have been more wars, leading up to 9/11, and the political, ecological, and human morass in which we find ourselves today. People who grew up in India, or Africa, or South America, or other places on earth, were all shaped by different cultural and political experiences, often much harsher than what I've described.

The thing is, anyone who's older now has seen and experienced a particular version of human history, as well as countless personal traumas, health scares, disappointments, losses, and deaths. Yet we've somehow survived, and a good many of us have actually gained wisdom about life, and being human, from what we've lived through. That wisdom seems sorely needed now, just as much as we older people need the energy and vitality of the young who will carry our hopes for humanity into the future. I'm going to try to share some of that wisdom in these posts, not just in my own words but through the writing of some of my friends.

In conclusion for today, then, here is a short recent social media post from Dick Jones, a former teacher, and continuing poet, musician, and father, who lives in London and is an old and dear friend of mine:

Sometimes I find myself just stopping half way across a room & standing still. I'm not really thinking or reflecting; I'm just feeling worn out, defeated & terribly sad. We've only just rocked & rolled our way out of 3 years of Brexit & climate crisis conflict with all of its attendant disillusionment & disgust - that final exposure of the ethical & ideological poverty, the sheer malignant, self-serving stupidity of power politics across the board. And now some half-biblical, half-shit dystopia movie plague has come rolling in like an invisible fog to gather us all up as if in reckoning for our moral failings.

Well, whatever the clichéd symbolism of Covid-19's busy, relentless work across the small, synaptic gaps between us, it brings with it one equally platitudinous requirement: that we be kind to each other. If 'only connect' now has grim connotations of infection, 'long-distance love' must take its place. The immediate casualties of this silent plague are those whose day-to-day welfare was entirely dependent on the physical proximity of others -- from the barrista dispensing a skinny rush-hour latte, to the elderly emphysema sufferer in the doctor's waiting room. We have to look after each other across the old social, political & cultural barriers. As the traditional transactions become redundant, we have to share -- mutual aid must define the way we live against the temptations of the survivalist siege. It's a choice, but surely an inexorable one...

Comments

[Melanie]

Dear Beth,
I'm a millennial (on the young side, 26, living in the US) who has sporadically read your posts after being pointed here by Teju Cole some time ago. I'm very interested to read your thoughts on this generational gap, and I've been seeing it play out in somewhat opposite ways as well. I've been maintaining moderate social distance for several weeks and have been staying fully at home since last week; many of my friends who are my age are doing the same. I do have a few, though, who seem to think that my partner and I are being a little extreme in not wanting to spend time with them, go over to visit, etc. We have been pushing them hard to think about the impact their choices are having on those around them.

I'm also seeing the other side of the coin, though, with my partner's parents, who are Boomers (62 and 82, one diabetic). We are pretty worried about them in general if they were to get sick, and especially concerned that they don't seem to be taking social distancing and isolation precautions seriously at all. It took significant convincing to prevent them from coming to visit last weekend, and they have been doing things that seem very reckless to me like going to the gym, going shopping for discretionary items, and going out with friends. Yesterday there was a post on the New Yorker's website by Michael Schulman called Convincing Boomer Parents to Take the Coronavirus Seriously, in which he explores some of the historical events you mention (the Cold War, Vietnam, etc.) and draws the opposite conclusion: that (some) people who lived through that period are now desensitized to threats that don't feel immediately tangible. His post resonated with my experience with my in-laws.

I do think that your point about those who have chosen to live some kind of an alternative lifestyle that aligns more with our values may be one dividing line in reactions to the pandemic - within my own social and familial circle my parents, neighbors, and friends who have tended toward social justice and environmental activism and community-centered living are much more engaged in protecting one another's health. Meanwhile, those more like my in-laws, who have lived a very normative suburban, corporate-career (perhaps individualistic?) life are just not seeming that concerned. I think my own experience of growing up during escalating climate crisis, war, and dramatic income inequality has made me aware of my own responsibility to others, both in my immediate community and more broadly, and that influences the way that I think about politics and about the social and economic choices I make in my own life.

Wishing you and other readers well.

[Roderick Robinson]

I worry. Times are hard, so hard it seems, they preclude even a smidgeon of humour. I'm particularly concerned that the corona (An utterly delightful natural phenomenon) will now - for ever and a day - wear the crown of obloquy. What we are suffering from is the Trumpian Plague. I urge everyone to re-examine their inventiveness and originality. Spread a little light.

[Robb]

Kia Ora Beth...I had my 17 year old son drive me to the store yesterday here in New Zealand. Things are still moving here though the borders are now closed. We both got a shock at the scene. A Thursday morning and the place was packed. Canned goods, pasta, rice, and other non-perishables gone off the shelves. We got what we could and left. Last night he came and talked to his mom and I about it. It had made him uneasy and anxious. He felt he was witnessing the coming of something way beyond his own experience. He was worried about me getting it. The boomer. It was a bright moment in darkening days. Kia Kaha e hoa.
Arohanui
Robb

[Beth]

Melanie, thank you so much for your long, thoughtful reply to this post, and I'm sorry it's taken me this long to respond. The point you make about differences in life choices affecting one's response to this crisis seem right on to me, and accord with what I've witnessed in people I know. I'm not sure I agree with Schulman because, as you point out, the Boomer generation includes both those people who were sensitized by those traumatic events and lived their lives as empathetic activists, and those who turned away and became self-centered and individualistic. This spring I attended a reunion at Dartmouth College of people from my husband's class who had been SDS members and worked actively as students against the Vietnam War, some even doing jail time after a building takeover. Almost everyone in the room had devoted a big part of their life to activism, gone into careers that helped others or a particular other cause, documented social change through the arts or writing. A lot of them were still living alternative lifestyles.

Wishing you well too, and I hope we'll hear from you again.

[Beth]

Robb, I know things have changed there even in the few days since you wrote this. I'm sorry for the anxiety this causes the young, and glad your son loves you and cares about you. It's going to be a decisive and formative experience in the lives of many young people.

[Dick]

Thank you, Beth, for the inclusion in that fine meditation on age and the getting of wisdom. It was so good to talk the other day - a real gathering of the pioneers! Let's do it again very soon.