White hair standing at attention
Sometimes even the routines that have seen me through decades get to me now. Perhaps there is more to this than aging in a world that has remained the same and yet so different.
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Sometimes even the routines that have seen me through decades get to me now. Perhaps there is more to this than aging in a world that has remained the same and yet so different.
Staring at that tuft of white hair growing longer above the left forehead of Senator Kiko Pangilinan, who was speaking on television during the Sara Duterte impeachment trial, I was struck by a ridiculous thought: Did those locks turn white listening to the grating anger in the voice of the beleaguered Vice President of the Philippines shouting invectives and cuss words?
I know I had to wear headphones to finish this piece. The discord, the battle of legalese, the sinking feeling at the thought that nothing life-changing will come out of this latest event in the Senate are all white hair-inducing. The world is bonkers. War is being waged everywhere, from Hormuz to our home screens.
Am I too old for this? Sometimes even the routines that have seen me through decades get to me now. Perhaps there is more to this than aging in a world that has remained the same and yet so different — a world that I had hoped to see change back when I still had the energy to chase after every new thing.
These days, it is either I no longer have that powerful urge to know what’s coming next, or there are far too many things going on to ever keep up with it all.
Not a few times in my daily job of editing, I have had to call on one of the younger members of my team, someone more than half my age, to show me how to make a certain computer function work. Like many of Gen X, I am not a complete dunce when it comes to digital tools, but with the way technology is accelerating in these times, one sometimes has to seek assistance.
I feel no embarrassment in asking for help when it comes to this. The world keeps changing — and fast! One day, a new app replaces something you thought you had just mastered. Artificial intelligence, you find, has entered your everyday life.
You sit in a restaurant and wait for the menu, only to be told a few beats later that you are to scan the QR code on the corner of the table to view the menu. Sometimes, you get handed a laptop to do this too, and while perhaps the environment warrior in you is applauding the paperless society you are starting to see, you wonder again when the world started to change around you.
Cashiers too have disappeared. Cash itself is increasingly unnecessary to pay for purchases. And music? You can follow BTS around the world and never understand the words to their songs, or keep up with the Joneses and catch Taylor Swift, yet never really “get” the music she makes. The oldies today that were your youthful anthems, you discover, are part of Gen Z collections who also appreciate them.
There are plenty of things around us that can make us feel old, but they certainly do not make us obsolete. Only you can make yourself feel obsolete. It’s a matter of curiosity — how you continue to approach the world, how you learn from every year that you add to your age.
Here’s something youth cannot speed up: Perspective. Wisdom does come with age, although not every old person is wise. Just look at some of the aging politicians sitting in the houses of Congress, and the ones who came before them.
Each generation thinks they invented change: Our parents saw the advent of television, we saw the internet, and the young ones are seeing AI. So while the digital natives ignore the TV and glue their eyes to laptop and mobile screens, and the older generations are seeing the internet become increasingly available to all — all of us must contend with the new change that no one can avoid.
Perhaps growing older in a young world is not about trying to keep pace with every new trend. It is about remaining curious enough to ask questions, humble enough to keep learning, and wise enough to know that novelty and progress are not always the same thing.
