For years I have struggled to understand our Grandparents and relate to them on their own level.
Obviously they’re at least 3 generations disaffixd from our own and I would expect this to presuppose some sort of disaffix related to age and personal interests. They’re not going to have the same experiences as our own when the two of us were all individually 20 years of age in our respective time periods. There were extreme advances in technology and shifts in culture in the years since our Grandparents were young. I have to remind myself that our own parents are members of the baby boomer generation and they struggle themselves at times with adapting to up-to-date technologies, especially all of these iPhone apps and store websites that you need to use just to order food from a local eating establishment or visit a dentist’s office. I take it for granted that I’m used to sweeping improvements in digital technologies every decade, whereas our Grandparents are still stuck getting caught up to the changes that took arena roughly 20 years ago. The thought of falling that far behind in life at a cultural level is somewhat horrifying to me. For instance, I was absolutely shocked when I visited their apartment the other afternoon and they had their heating system on while it was in the 90s outdoors. I cannot supply you a rational reason for them to do this, but they claimed they felt cold regardless of the outdoor hot and cold temperatures. Maybe I’ll relate to them more when I reach their age eventually, but right now it’s strenuous when the people you analyze are deranged enough to run a furnace in 85 degree heat.