Arrogance of youth...

I had one of those defining moments in life a few days ago - a slip up on me, smack me in the face reminder that I'm not getting any younger, and the actual youth are taking over.  My iPhone (yes, I know, uncharacteristically trendy of me, but it's For Work) was not functioning properly, forcing me to enter The Hallowed Place, also known as the local Apple store for any neophytes who haven't had the experience.  (Note I did not say pleasure.  It is rarely a pleasure to enter the doors beneath the gleaming silver apple in the sky.  Mostly, it's expensive, but I digress.)

Anyway, as I sidled into the orifice of the beast, I was greeted by a variety of young people who handed me forward like we were doing the Grand right and left down the center aisle in their little dance.  Ultimately, I ended up with a young man who was probably born after the shoes I was wearing came off the assembly line.  I am not sure he was even out of nursery school, although the wedding ring on his finger made me suspicious that he was less young than I am old.

I am not saying he wasn't knowledgeable.  His head was packed with information I neither needed nor wanted, since my only goal was to get the phone working again and get the heck out of Dodge while spending as little as possible.

But he was young.  And it showed.  Oh, how it showed.

He was filled with the disdain of youth for their elders.  He assumed I knew nothing about the technology involved, and thus needed him to explain the complex workings of the cellular device that I was not able to use (it didn't seem to occur to him that the prized possession may actually not be functioning properly.)  He worried that I would lose Important Stuff (because my entire life revolves around my phone, naturally,) and explained in elementary terms (read - like talking to a four year old) how to sync the phone to the computer, as if I hadn't been doing that since before he was a dot on an ultrasound.

His arrogance was matched only by his determination that this older person would walk away an Apple believer.  He ran diagnostics.  He patiently explained how to turn the phone on and off.  He connected my phone to a cord, and after about five minutes of reassuring me that everything, but everything would be gone, but it was The Only Way to cellular nirvana, he wiped out the phone and we started from scratch.

He insisted I needed help setting up the phone, sighed when I said I didn't need the location services (I went back in later and changed the settings, but seriously, I had a job to get cracking on, and didn't have time to play around) and informed me that they HIGHLY recommend setting up an iCloud account, and I would somehow be a lesser mortal if I failed in my mission to be connected to the great Core in the Silicon Valley.  I passed.  He sighed louder.

It was then that a revelation made it's way into my brain.  We come from different worlds, the under 35's and the overs.  We have different goals in using our technology.  We have different expectations of what our phone should be able to do for us (or to us.)  We have different needs for our telephonic adventure.  And there is no common ground.

Old people want the phone to be a tool, to work for them when they need it.  People my age do not want to be enslaved to electronic media 24/7, and we resist the invasion of our privacy and our time by the shrill call of the cell.

Young people seem to have a different relationship with their technology.  They want it in their hand, they want to be connected at all times, they interact via media more than they do in person, and they don't have the same desire for privacy that we oldsters grasp for.  For the younger crowd, the media is an end all on it's own, while for people my age, it's simply the means to get somewhere else.

I think I now understand why Mark Zuckerberg is constantly surprised by the furor created with his massive changes each time they bring out a new iteration of Facebook.  He is catering to the under 35 crowd, and his focus groups consist primarily of his target audience.

I have a suggestion for him, one which would probably garner him billions more in advertising dollars, and enhance the experience for all of us.  Allow choice in which format you want for your FB page.  Bring back the original experience, and call it Facebook Legacy - a simplified, dumbed down version that allows people to do what Facebook originally intended - connect with people you already know, and with whom you already have something in common.

 For the younger set, bring on Facebook Future, with all the bells and whistles, apps and games.  If they don't care about privacy, they can set their page to accept any new feature as it becomes available.  They will be on the cutting edge, leaving their parents safely back behind the fence.

It's an idea we could all embrace.

I think the youth who helped me at the Great Silver Apple in the Sky was left as depressed by the experience as I was. As I exited the store, he shook his head behind me.  His thought was clear.  I am a land line person in a digital world.  He may be right.  Have you seen my rotary phone anywhere?!

Less is more...

People who know me well are aware my life is currently in upheaval.  (I realize this is not exactly the earth shattering pronouncement it may have been if I were someone whose life was not constantly in flux, but none the less, it is true.)  For those not In The Know, I decided, after long and careful thought, to uproot myself and move back to the Great Motherland in the North.

I am not unique in this prodigal return.  It seems that sooner or later, most people who Leave Minnesota For Good eventually end up right back where they started.  It's disconcerting to once again be just another average statistic, but I'll get it over it.  I do hate being this predictable, however.

In the process of moving, I have been forced to go through everything I own, deciding what to keep and what to toss.  It's been surprisingly cathartic, as I have detached myself from the unnecessary and figured out what actually matters to me.  The new me, the one in Minnesota, will be a substantially slimmed down version of myself, and I think I'm going to like it.

I haven't gotten rid of anything vital, of course.  I need my tools, and I have more clothes than I will probably wear in a lifetime.  My kitchen will remain well stocked with items, even after my daughter runs off with a few items she cannot live without!  My garage will still be full of car and lawn care items, and I will still have everything I need to deal with the A to Z's of life.

But I will actually know what I have, and hopefully I will be able to put my finger on where it is when I need it.  That will be a nice novelty I haven't enjoyed in quite some time.

What has amazed me in the past month, however, is how little I have missed all the stuff I have already discarded.  I find I don't even recall what I had, much less feel like I miss it.  How surprising life can be at times!

This has been a good lesson for me.  All the stuff I have clung to and thought was so important may be just window dressing, covering up what really matters to me.  When you step back, take a deep breath, and truly examine what you have in life, sometimes there is a clarity about things that you cannot get any other way.

I have spent the packing up hours examining my life along with the belongings, and have found some things to discard there, as well.  Old attitudes that no longer reflect who I am, old ways of doing things that might be done a better way, inefficient thinking which constrains me and holds me hostage to the past - all of it needs to go.  If it is not moving me forward in my life, then it is holding me back, and I need to discard it.

The road has been long, and the process has been difficult, but I think I may finally be emerging into a new life.  Finding our place in the world is a process, not an event, and all lives have hard times, but I have discovered it is possible to open oneself to the possibilities and enjoy the process more than I have to date.

I am heading back to the future at the end of this month, and I am starting to really look forward to what is ahead for my life.  If nothing else, living in the town where I grew up will remind me of who I fundamentally am, and that can only be a good thing. Growth is painful, change is hard, but the future is not attainable without both.

Time to pack up and move on out to my new life in my old home town!  I can't wait to see what's ahead for me, and share it with you, my faithful readers.  From the big city lights to the small town nights, life is changing, and I'm changing with it. I hope you will all come along for the ride.