Enjoying Our Era

Do you ever find yourself asking why the younger generation curses so much?

I personally find it coarse, rude and indicating a limited vocabulary, but they defend f-bombs as "just words," asking why I should be offended by them.

At the same time, many descriptive words have become taboo, considered to be micro-aggressions to some of the same people cussing up a storm.



For example, you can't say a joke is lame, because that is offensive to someone who has mobility challenges, and of course we know you can't say a politician is retarded, because that insults people who have true mental disablities (no retarded person wants to be put in the same category as a politician).

Yesterday I heard that asking an Asian student for help in math or science has been determined to be a micro-aggression at Gonzaga University, just as last year many campuses declared asking someone with a strong accent where they grew up is terribly offensive, making them feel less accepted as equal.

When I think back to my youth, my grandparents were offended by some of our terms too.  Why did we say "bitchin'" if something was groovy (or at least had been groovy the year before)?  Perhaps "groovy" actually started as some sexual reference, much like "rock and roll."  Language keeps evolving, or perhaps devolving, since we seem to be digressing to the lowest common denominator.




A few weeks ago, Julie and I attended a Shakespeare in the Park production of "The Comedy of Errors."  Written about 500 years ago, the language now seems archaic and many expressions are downright indecipherable without talented actors emoting with over-the-top actions.

If we went back another 500 years from there, I dare say most of us wouldn't understand the English language much better than we understand Latin.

Language, however, is only a small element of much greater societal and technological evolution.

Eventually, we will find ourselves living in a totally foreign environment, probably not quite as strange as those futures envisioned in "The Matrix" or "Idiocracy," but certainly as different as our lives would seem to my grandparents who lived on a farm without telephones, televisions and indoor plumbing but still felt fortunate to have all they needed.

At some point, we will feel as obsolete as a cassette tape.  If you're like me, you already feel deep nostalgia for some long gone aspects of your life.

But time moves on.



If you stay home and marinate in your memories from decades ago, you will accelerate your obsolescence.  My theory is you will be drawn to join those who have passed on to the next experience in the afterlife, because that's where you feel you belong.

Or, you can enjoy this current era.

One of the best places to replenish your zest for life is on a cruise, especially if you are on one geared to your desires.  You will find fellow travelers who share your passions.

It can seem like the fountain of youth, even if you have to grudgingly admit that the person you see in the mirror and your fellow passengers may not look like the attractive young people you envisioned always being when you were 27.

Then again, you probably didn't have the means to live in Modern Luxury when you were 27.