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Do you think we're capable of deeper emotions as we age? What does that mean? What really changes?
Most of the folks I know in the offline world have a sort of age cohort that they go through life with. The only people they know 20 years younger than them are their friends' kids; the only people 20 years older are their relatives. They'd never think of making friends with their kids' friends, even as young adults, either. There's a whole cross-age friendship taboo, in fact.
One of the things this does to people is it makes them feel like their age is The Age. They don't know what it's like to be 20 now, because they were 20 a few years ago; in the absence of knowing any real live 20 year olds, they assume it's the same way for everyone that it was for them and their friends. Nevermind that maybe their parents helped them out more, or they had a better job, or a worse living situation; their idea of "normal 20 year old-ness" is based on what they knew at the time.
In some ways, I see the younger folks I know freaking out over "the worst stuff in the world" and thinking, ha! You don't KNOW what stress is! But then, I remember being a teenager and coping with "the worst stuff in the world"-- and one of the most stressful parts, for me, was having this nearly-unbearable misery over a test or being teased or whatever, and thinking if it's this bad over this little stuff (honest! I knew it was little stuff), how am I ever going to survive adulthood?
I feel sometimes like emotions are deeper as an adult and grow deeper as we age-- but that our personal capacity to think and act and feel AROUND even the most all-encompassing emotion grows faster than our emotions do. We love more, hate more, grieve more, but we survive being able to do so. I think that's part of why children don't understand death very well-- if they did, they'd never be able to deal with it straight up. Better to have it come over time, with the realizations hitting around the time that they're able to be angry and not fall on the floor and kick and scream.
I just wonder what's going to change about this in the next ten years, for me...
Most of the folks I know in the offline world have a sort of age cohort that they go through life with. The only people they know 20 years younger than them are their friends' kids; the only people 20 years older are their relatives. They'd never think of making friends with their kids' friends, even as young adults, either. There's a whole cross-age friendship taboo, in fact.
One of the things this does to people is it makes them feel like their age is The Age. They don't know what it's like to be 20 now, because they were 20 a few years ago; in the absence of knowing any real live 20 year olds, they assume it's the same way for everyone that it was for them and their friends. Nevermind that maybe their parents helped them out more, or they had a better job, or a worse living situation; their idea of "normal 20 year old-ness" is based on what they knew at the time.
In some ways, I see the younger folks I know freaking out over "the worst stuff in the world" and thinking, ha! You don't KNOW what stress is! But then, I remember being a teenager and coping with "the worst stuff in the world"-- and one of the most stressful parts, for me, was having this nearly-unbearable misery over a test or being teased or whatever, and thinking if it's this bad over this little stuff (honest! I knew it was little stuff), how am I ever going to survive adulthood?
I feel sometimes like emotions are deeper as an adult and grow deeper as we age-- but that our personal capacity to think and act and feel AROUND even the most all-encompassing emotion grows faster than our emotions do. We love more, hate more, grieve more, but we survive being able to do so. I think that's part of why children don't understand death very well-- if they did, they'd never be able to deal with it straight up. Better to have it come over time, with the realizations hitting around the time that they're able to be angry and not fall on the floor and kick and scream.
I just wonder what's going to change about this in the next ten years, for me...
