“I think it is a hangover from the sixties, the obsession with youth. Some people die at seventeen and put their funeral off until they’re seventy-seven. And I see a lot of dead young people, I see a lot of alive old people.”
Bono so clearly articulates what has been crawling around in my brain for a while. The worship of youth is getting worse and worse in our society. I remember that I got some flack in high school for writing an essay or speech or something that basically said that people who want to stay young were stupid. I’ve always been a strong proponent of respecting and listening to age and wisdom. But I feel more and more like a minority these days.
To me, it seems like so many people try so hard to stay young for so long in their lives. And I’m not talking just with the clothes they wear, or the the language they adopt (but. the. period. after. every. word. thing. is. getting. mighty. dumb.). It is in the way they describe the music they listen to, the books they read, the movies they watch… their whole bad attitude towards age shows through every comment and joke. Its really funny to listen to a 30-something year-old talk about a teeny-bopper band and make fun of old people for not getting said band in the same sentence. It couldn’t be that the band can’t sing or write a decent melody… no… it HAS to be that if you don’t like it, you are just too old.
What drives some to try so hard to hang on to their youth? Forever young is just… boring. Mainly because “forever young” is just a metaphor for saying “I want to worship youthand do everything they do, regardless of whether I really personally like it or not.” That is what I think Bono is referring to: some people just want to stay 17, so they keep acting like the 17 year-olds around them even when they get in to their 30s and 40s.
I keep an ear to most music, and an eye on many trends. Sadly, I can general predict what friends are going to be gushing over what band or book or movie or trend just by following what is hip with the 17-year-old mind set. These friends never, ever deviate from that. They are truly enslaved to what is hip to the teenage mindset, even into their 30s. If you really like it, that is cool. There are some things that are cool among the teens today that I like also. But if you are trying to make yourself out to be so cool and so much better than older people because you like some teenager thing, then stop it. That is just pride and it reeks.
(and if this is you: most teenagers are laughing at you behind your back. Really… trust me. I used to be a teenager that laughed at people like you, all the while telling you how cool you were to your face. That way, you would keep it up and give us more stuff to laugh at.)
To me, the real goal – no matter whether you are old or young – is to be alive. Who cares about being young? That is an age thing that you can’t control. But you can be alive no matter what your age is… living life to the fullest. Do you like something the teens are in to? Great! Just don’t talk down to those that don’t like it, or try to guilt others in to liking it. Don’t like something the kids are in to? That’s great, too – just don’t talk down to them for liking it in the first place. Everyone has different tastes.
But now that I am pushing closer to the big 4-0, I can say more authoritatively to people in their 30s: stop living like a zombie! Quit trying to immortalize your youth and start living “alive” today.