For years I have struggled to understand my grandparents and relate to them on their own level.
Obviously they’re at least three generations removed from my own and I would expect this to presuppose some sort of disconnect related to age and personal interests.
They’re not going to have the same experiences as my own when we were all individually 20 years of age in our respective time periods. There were serious advances in technology and shifts in culture in the years since my grandparents were young. I have to remind myself that my own parents are members of the baby boomer generation and they struggle themselves at times with adapting to new technologies, especially all of these phone apps and store websites that you need to use just to order food from a local restaurant or visit a doctor’s office. I take it for granted that I’m used to sweeping improvements in digital technologies every decade, whereas my grandparents are still stuck getting caught up to the changes that took place roughly 20 years ago. The thought of falling that far behind in life at a cultural level is somewhat scary to me. For instance, I was absolutely shocked when I visited their house the other day and they had their heating system on while it was in the 90s outdoors. I cannot give you a rational reason for them to do this, but they claimed they felt cold regardless of the outdoor temperatures. Maybe I’ll relate to them more when I reach their age eventually, but right now it’s difficult when the people you analyze are crazy enough to run a furnace in 85 degree heat.