Friday, November 14, 2008

Maybe this is why older people frustrate me

It's not that all older people frustrate me, of course. The vast majority of my interactions with older people are perfectly unremarkable. But when they do frustrate me, it's always because they aren't smarter enough than me. It's an annoyance because it's very difficult to keep up the appropriate level of respect (yes, believe it or not I don't always want to be a disrespectful little shit) when telling someone decades my elder that they're completely wrong, and it's also scary because it makes me wonder if I'm going to stop learning at some point - there's no way half the older people I deal with have spent a lifetime learning at the same rate I am.

But this might explain why:



My entire adulthood has taken place in the 21st century. The vast majority of my adolescence happened on the internet. I've been constantly intaking these huge quantities of information for nearly half my life without even noticing. I feel egregiously underinformed about buying real estate, but I have more information than my parents did when they bought their first house. I mention that the problem with translation is it isn't very organized as an industry, so I don't really know how exactly I'd go about finding a translation job next time I need a job. My older interlocutor says, "Look in the classified ads in the newspaper" as though that's the solution to all life's problems, as though translation jobs have ever been advertised in the classified ads in the newspaper, as though jobs were just advertised instead of us having to access a hidden job market and incorporate ourselves so we can bid on government contracts and educate prospective employers who want bidirectional translation AND conference interpretation AND by the way you're also responsible for organizing the whole conference all for $28,000 a year. But maybe that really was what the world was like last time my interlocutor looked for a job, and they haven't had to look for a job since so they aren't aware that his is unapplicable. Maybe they really think they have all the information because that was the quantity of information they needed last time around.

It's still very frustrating though, because I find myself unable to evaluate whether I'm exponentially more informed or egregiously ignorant. For example, suppose I read in my morning paper "The Prime Minister's economic plan will protect us from this financial turmoil." So I go and google up what exactly the economic plan is, I find commentary supporting and opposing, I do some quick research on the trickier concepts, I post my remaining questions here and maybe some of you nice people answer them. Then I finish my coffee, put on some pants, and go off to work. I don't quite feel well-informed, but I feel like I have a decent overview. Later on I find myself talking about this to an older interlocutor who has been thinking about economics since before I was born. I mention that the information I could find on the economic plan seems to be rather lacking in specifics, and one or two commenters have pointed out ways in which the lessons of the past are not applicable here, and there are some pieces of ideology they have expressed in the past that could be disastrous if implemented here. "Don't worry," my interlocutor tells me, "the Prime Minister's economic plan will protect us from this financial turmoil."

So are they saying this based on their decades of financial experience, of having watched the rise and fall of several economic cycles? Or are they saying this because they read it in the newspaper this morning and are now accepting it as fact?

3 comments:

laura k said...

First, can you define older? Is it just anyone older than you? How much older does a person have to be to qualify? (Not trying to be snarky, really asking.)

Second, anyone older than you who is less intelligent and informed than you probably always was and always will be, no matter what their age.

"and it's also scary because it makes me wonder if I'm going to stop learning at some point - there's no way half the older people I deal with have spent a lifetime learning at the same rate I am."

I think (not sure) that you're assuming that the older person used to be curious and seeking knowledge and at some point, stopped. Couldn't it be that the older person was also an incurious, underinformed younger person? One of the zillions of people who thinks reading a headline or hearing a snippet of a news story on TV is the same as truly understanding an issue?

Because anyone who says, "Don't worry, the Prime Minister's economic plan will protect us from this financial turmoil" may not have been smart at any age.

impudent strumpet said...

I don't know if I can articulate all this well, but I'll give it a try.

First, can you define older?

It isn't so much a function of calendar age as that the people I experience this frustration with are all people with whom I have a relationship where the age difference is a significant defining factor, where the unspoken expectation is that I should give them a certain respect by virtue of their age and should be able to get Advice and Wisdom in return. For example, I have co-workers who are older than my parents, but I would never ask my co-workers for advice about life or give them special respect by virtue of their age (professional advice, yes, and professional respect by virtue of their credentials, yes, but that's because of their decades of translation experience, not their decades of life experience). It's the kind of relationship where I can ask them how to make stew, or they could start telling me about how important it is to put your extra money into paying off the mortgage, and the answer to "Why are you asking/telling me this?" is essentially they age difference.

I think (not sure) that you're assuming that the older person used to be curious and seeking knowledge and at some point, stopped.

Being afraid that I'll stop learning came long before I theorized a link with magnitude of information available. It isn't about curiosity or seeking knowledge, it's just about the random stuff you pick up from living life. What a leading indicator is, where Moldova is, how to identify telemarketing scams, the pros and cons of raw milk, etc. Sometimes I'd realize and be slightly awed by how much stuff I've randomly learned within the past, say, five years. Then I'd think of someone who's, say, 50 years older than me, and I'd realize that there's no way they've been learning stuff at the same rate for the past 50 years. Even if it's mostly irrelevant stuff, I should at least have some sense that they have this great untapped store of knowledge. So I've been worrying that I might reach a point where life just doesn't give me any new knowledge any more, and that's scary. But then based on the numbers in this YouTube, it occurs to me that maybe my elders haven't spent their lives learning at the same rate as I am because exponentially less information was readily available to them.

Because anyone who says, "Don't worry, the Prime Minister's economic plan will protect us from this financial turmoil" may not have been smart at any age.

The problem is when it's coming from someone who may well have the knowledge to actually evaluate the plan, or at least I don't have the knowledge to be able to tell that they didn't.

laura k said...

It isn't so much a function of calendar age as that the people I experience this frustration with are all people with whom I have a relationship where the age difference is a significant defining factor,

Right. Makes sense to me now.

So I've been worrying that I might reach a point where life just doesn't give me any new knowledge any more, and that's scary.

Hm. That's an interesting worry. I have many worries, but that isn't among them, so I'm mulling it over to see what it means.