People mover reset

Recently, I wrote here about a recurring theme—the idea of a "people mover" that transports folks along through life, with each generation replaced in due course by the ones behind them. That particular post, named "Why we need the people mover," may have left a misperception that I want to correct. So, here's my understanding of what some folks may have (mis)understood ... along with an attempt to understand why my meaning may have been unclear ... all followed by another try at what I really meant to say. Which isn't as complicated as it sounds.

First, here's what I fear folks may have heard/read in my words: "Old people need to realize that it's our turn to rotate off the end of the people mover, pack up our old-fashioned perspectives, and get out of the way of younger folks behind us." In short, I fear that people may have understood me to be saying that life in old age is worthless. We aren't contributing anything worthwhile, and we're just falling more and more behind the times. So we may as well step off the busy route of life and leave the space and the resources to other (younger) people.

This was not what I meant to say. So how did I manage to convey that message?

Well, here's one thing I wrote early in that blog that I realize could easily have given people that impression. "At some point," I wrote, "it’s our turn to get out of the way … as it will be everyone’s turn, with time." Oops! That sure sounds like I meant "it's time to get out of the way," since that's exactly what I said. Poor wording, poor placement. Poorly said.

Now, it's also true that elsewhere in that same blog, I wrote this: "My daily aim is to do what I can to stay engaged, to learn at least some of the skills that the new game asks of me—enough to have fun, even if I don't master it all. Enough to avoid sinking into a curmudgeonly critique of everything that represents 'kids these days'.” And in a subsequent blog, I wrote, "Delving into this book is exactly the sort of experience that keeps me surprised and delighted as life moves forward—a way of staying engaged instead of drifting." 

The problem, it seems to me, is the psychological gap between that first comment ("get out of the way") and the others ("to stay engaged, to learn..."; "surprised and delighted as life moves forward"). That gap is too easily filled by all of the stereotypes about aging that cause the first comment to stand out and the others to fade into the background. Let me explain what I mean.

I've written before about the concept of implicit attitudes—the non-conscious beliefs we all walk around with that shape our experience, even though we don't know it. We all learned negative attitudes about various groups—at least if we were conscious and paying attention. We're sponges. So we all have racist, sexist, abelist, classist, ageist ... attitudes, even when they are about groups we belong to. So, I—like everyone else—have ageist attitudes. I try to be aware of them, try to unlearn them, but they're still there. Lurking to trip me up just when I thought I was safe, like writing my own blog. I suspect it was just these non-conscious attitudes that popped out in my language "time to get out of the way"—even though I didn't mean it in the way it can so easily be taken. Other folks may have been caught by the same goblin, hearing the idea of the people mover as an invitation to check out of life. Because that interpretation is exactly what my language invited.

A listserv I belong to recently featured an article on stereotypes about aging and how those can be self-fulfilling prophecies, how they often disguise subtle forms of ageism. For instance, messages to old people to "get out of the way" and "not use up resources that are needed by younger people" actually convey troubling messages: Old people have nothing to offer, so they're "in the way." Old people do not deserve to have their own needs and dreams fulfilled, so they are "wasting resources" that should go to others.

Honestly, at a conscious, intentional level, this is not what I meant to convey. My actual meaning is clearer in the latter two quotes above—but those got lost as we all stumbled around in the implicit attitudes that my earlier language evoked. So now, let me attempt to be very clear about what I actually meant to say all along:

As I look behind me on the people mover, I see generations of people coming along who see a different world than the one I have known, the one that shaped my life. And I especially notice these differences when I encounter massive changes in how life "works"—things like the ascendancy of online education, the replacement of monthly print newsletters by regularly updated websites, and the reframing of the very meaning of "privacy"—the changes I mentioned in my troublesome blog. But I don't see these changes as bad things at all, challenging though they may sometimes be. On the contrary, I see them as the very positive, very exciting affirmation of the necessary nature of the people mover: There are generations coming along behind us who are re-shaping the world—and rightfully so! It's a good thing that the world is changing. Imagine how sad it would be if it weren't. It is their turn to define how life will look for them. And it's not our place to tell them that it's wrong.

This does not mean that we should step aside. Be silent. Be disengaged. And it does not mean that old people have nothing to add, that the best we can do is watch. In my mind, it's actually a challenge to do the opposite—to live fully, to honor the life I've experienced so far, and to continually construct a new one that draws energy from this new world. That means continuing to learn, staying engaged and forward looking, facing head on the changes that challenge me to change, too. And it means thinking about what I can bring that draws from my own experience, from the "old world" I know so well. It means being open to opportunities to be a model, a mentor, a teacher of sorts.

Margaret Mead, the brilliant cultural anthropologist who changed so much of our thinking during the 20th century, wrote about (among other things) relationships among generations. She argued that in a culture like ours where change is so rapid, the older generation can teach the younger not what they need to learn, but the importance of learning. They can show them not what to value, but the importance of having values. Not how to love, but the importance of loving. That, I think, is our enduring role as we look back from our place on the people mover.

That's a far cry from "getting out of the way" in the sense of giving up and checking out. Instead, it means "getting out of the way" in the sense of letting go of our assumption that we know what the answers are and instead enjoying the opportunity to demonstrate the importance of seeking answers, even when we haven't a clue what they will be.