In an idle moment a couple days ago I took one of
those online What
age are you really? quizzes and came up with the ludicrous answer
of 19. Yet, after the guffaws subsided, I wondered if there was a sense in
which it wasn’t off by much – and in the wrong direction.
I have met some people
who underwent radical conversion in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or later such as a
former “wild child” turned ultra-conservative and a criminal/hooligan turned
upright ethical watchdog. But these are the exceptions. Most people
fundamentally are what they are by the time they graduate high school. On the
occasions I meet old friends and acquaintances from high school or college, I
am always struck by how little they have changed. Oh, they may be hard to
recognize physically. They’ve gotten greyer (and/or balder) and portlier. They
have life experience and (usually) some job-related or academic expertise.
They’ve had to deal with serious troubles and losses. They may be married with
kids – even grandchildren. Yet, as a matter of basic personality, they are the
same goofballs I knew in 1970. In that regard, very few present any surprises.
I’m not one of the
exceptions. I’m older, seasoned, better read, and, I hope, wiser – though the
latter may be self-delusional ego-balm. The fellow looking back at me in the
mirror is a stranger. Nonetheless, my own basic sense of self hasn’t altered substantially
since I was 17. There were episodes in the years since then that seemed at the
time to be permanently life-altering and perspective-altering, but they proved
to be ephemeral digressions. I think anyone encountering me for the first time since
graduation would be unsurprised by anything beyond the cosmetic.
What brought all this to
mind was not just the quiz but the movie Nebraska,
which I watched at home in mixed-age company. Bruce Dern plays
Woody Grant, a retiree in Billings Montana who is convinced that he has won one
of those publisher’s sweepstakes and strives to take his letter to the
corporate HQ in Lincoln Nebraska to collect. The letter says “You have won
$1,000,000”; the small print clause beginning with “if” eludes him. Woody does
not have dementia but he definitely has let age catch up with him. We get
the sense, though, that even 50 or 60 years earlier he was the sort of person
inclined to believe what people told him. Along the way he stops in the small
town where he grew up and where most of his family still lives. His family and
friends are as old as he is, of course, yet the same issues and rivalries as
ever persist. I give the movie a thumbs up.
My co-watchers at first
were put off by the film, not for any flaw in the in the script or production
but for the frightening depiction of an age that we all (if we live so long) will
attain. They warmed to the movie by midpoint – it is funny in its own way – but
still were unsettled by it. I didn’t know any of them when they were 17, but it
is my guess they would have reacted the same way then. The flick didn’t bother
me, but perhaps that is my own failure of imagination at work: I've always found it hard
enough to conceive of myself at my present age never mind two decades beyond
it. That was true at 17, too; 37 was too ridiculously distant for me to
consider seriously then. As for 20 years from now...well, actuarial tables offer no reason to be optimistic about being here 20 years from now. Against the harsh reality of mortality a teen state of mind is a valuable buffer. I’m in no hurry to dispose of it. However, while fitting into a state of mind is one thing, I'm afraid fitting into my old school blazer might be an insurmountable obstacle.
I agree--age and time are hard perspectives to get a handle on. I never went back to any of my high school reunions, and never had any sort of nostalgia towards college, it was an even more alienating experience. Sure I made a few friends there, one of my roommates I still stay in touch with, but overall it was just too large and impersonal of an experience. But yes, I still feel the same person inside, the world and life are still esoteric. When we're kids we think of our parents know all the answers, until we reach that age, and find out there's more questions than answers. I enjoyed Nebraska too. It's one of those films, I suspect might be better on a second viewing.
ReplyDeleteMy HS and college were as opposite as can be: a prep school (110 students) in a semi-rural setting and a university (25 000 students) in downtown DC. By the end of each year I knew everyone by name in the former; in the latter I never learned the names even of most folks on my dorm floor. So, yeah, I know what you mean. I actually remember fewer people from college because it was more impersonal a setting. But by and large they’re just older, not otherwise transformed out of recognition.
DeleteAnd now I’ll show my age by referencing a Janis Joplin lyric (“Kozmic Blues”)
"Don't expect any answers, dear,
For I know that they don't come with age, no, no."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg0UyCPmksQ