Last week I took my daughter to see Enders Game - a sci-fi movie. Neither
of us really expected much from it but it was either that or tag along with my
sister who wanted to shop in the Mall. And she is a serious shopper!! The choice hence was pretty obvious!
Anyway the movie turned out to be 'much' better than expected and I really enjoyed it. But ‘my’ enjoyment paled into insignificance compared to my daughters’. Just after the movie started I glanced towards her to see if she was enjoying it as well - and she was loving it! I could make out that she was completely enraptured in the story as it unfolded. So enthralled was she that towards the end of the movie, in her excitement, she kept squirming and edging to the front of her seat, not aware of the possible danger of falling off her seat.
As we were walking out of the theater she turned in my direction and told me - Dad this is my favorite film of all time! I replied - Really ? Just a while ago you said that “Now You See Me’ was your favorite. And she said – Yes Dad! At the time it was, but now it is definitely "Enders Game".
I laughed and thought how typical this was of her and her age! Every new song she hears is the 'best ever'. She is tripping and falling into 'crushes' every week - and gushes with enthusiasm for every one of them. If asked she will have a definite answer for her favorite - song, book, movie, actor, author, singer, food, TV series, etc. All of these will change the very next day (as a new one comes along) but at "that" particular point in time it is so definitely the one.
The problem occurs however when she asks me in turn, to name 'my' favorites! I find it difficult, as there are none or in actuality - just too many! I would tell her that. I would tell her I have too many to name and then when she presses me I would reel out a few names. But even when I do answer - it would be something or someone from my time (which is eons ago in her timeline) and with a lack of enthusiasm that is evident. She just cannot understand how I could be so off-hand about my favorite things. Her entire reason for existence is her favorite things! When she talks of those, her eyes light up, her face beams and her entire body gets animated.
Don't you find it strange (and also endearing) that youngsters love every new thing - be it movies, songs, fashion or idols - while we look backwards? If pressed, I would name artists and authors from the Eighties and I am sure that my father, if asked, would say his favorite artist is Johann Strauss and author is Shakespeare - both of whom have been dead for the better part of a few centuries.
Youngsters truly live in the now! Everything exciting is happening 'now' and all that is past is well - passé! Every day is fresh and new and electrifying. They cannot wait to fall in love with the next new thing, get keyed-up about the next break-out artist of the future.
But as we get older we get jaded and the enthusiasm is leached out of us. We get fixated in our views! We link songs, artists and authors to critical points in our lives. The passions, tribulations and emotions associated with those times get overlaid and superimposed onto those albums, artists and books, forevermore becoming our benchmarks. As we get older those points get anchored into our timeline, eternally coloring our opinions and views. As our egos grow and calcify and we fall into a torpor of mental and emotional laziness, our likes and dislikes get frozen. Beyond this point, we pour cold water over any new influences, to submerge them in skepticism and cynicism.
So when my daughter gushes about One Direction, I wax lyrical about the Beatles. When she talks about J K Rowling, I throw Tolkein into the mix. Instead of fanning the flames of her fervor, I douse them by contrasting her idols with luminaries from another day. And as I list for her the great artists, authors, scientists and idols of my time and go through a litany of their contribution to humanity, I see a bit of that fire in her eyes die. Since she does not have the knowledge or the ability to refute my opinion, her ardour cools.
Why do I do this?
Maybe it is the fear of being inundated by the tidal wave of new technology and the sheer magnitude of talent that has been unleashed by it. It could also be the dread of losing 'my' generation's voice in the cacophony of superlative ability manifest in the current one. But most of all is this insidious thought in my head, telling me that if we do not battle to stake our claim with this fickle generation, there will be no one to sing our songs.
I think that each of us wants to give meaning to our lives - if not through our own, then through our generations’ contribution to humanity’s progress. And we want to leave our stamp! We want to tell succeeding generations that our lives counted for something - that we were part of a unique tribe and that our collective roles were too substantial to be lost in a flash.
But in so doing we also risk stalling the very engine that drives our progress – the next generation’s passion and their sense of self-pride!
Talk about the cost of living in the past!!
