Through Rose-Colored Glasses

I catch myself sounding like my parents more often than I care to admit.  "When we were young..." seems to be the Once upon a time lead-in to a lot of my stories.  I used to cringe when my parents felt the need to share one of their heartache stories.  I guess at that age you don't want to hear about hardship or how life was different or better.  From snot-nosed kids who think they know it all, being told differently doesn't go over so well.  Which leads me to my next most-used saying I got from my parents:  If I knew now what I knew then.

I used to look at all my parent's pictures that were in black-and-white when they were growing up and it was hard for me to imagine life in color back then.  I guess some of it had to do with the dirt roads, dirty industry and the depression... and also with film, photograph and television being in black-and-white, but I can't see it in any other hue.  There are several apps now that you can take your photos and apply a 70's, sepia tone to them to make them look older.  When I see the 70's when I was growing up, in my mind, as with B&W era, it's how I picture my childhood growing up.  I don't remember the actual crisp colors, I only remember it through the pictures with soft, filtered, muted colors.  Today, with everything enhanced in HD, details are amazing and right in your face, if not so abrupt in stark reality.

In the 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's, things were pretty much 'black-and-white', right down to the conduct of blacks and whites.  There were strict rules of ethics, laws, regions, unions, religion, ethnicity and etiquette in social behavior. You knew what the rules were and you followed them without question.  You weren't encouraged to think outside the box but, rather, to conform.  You didn't worry about what the neighbors were doing and you kept your mouth shut and lived a rather simple, quiet existence. Your life was pretty much centered around your family and it's survival, convened once daily around the dining room table at 6 p.m. followed by a radio show... with music being light and non-offensive... all without leaving your small part of the world.  This was living. 

When the 60's, 70's and 80's came around, people started to think more about themselves and expressing their thoughts.  Advancements in communication and technology opened up your sphere of influence and the walls came down.  Equal rights for blacks, free love and women's lib bust the doors wide open for blurring the lines of social and political influence in an age of blurred color in photos and film.  Music started having political messages and pleas for peace and tranquility.  Dads started traveling out of town for work and the TV dinner replaced the nightly meeting at the dining room table as you were summoned by the dinner bell in the back yard or your mom yelling out the back door.  As a child at that time, so much happened that I was oblivious to, including the Vietnam War and several other controversial events.  I was attached to my Mom's leg in my protective, muted, soft, filtered world, just as the pictures portrayed.  We were plopped down in our living room in front of our huge 20" color console TV;  our window to the world.  Close, but far enough away.  Involved, but at a safe distance.  This was living.

Today, the internet has opened our lives up to practically the universe. You can see what's happening around the world in real-time in places that you never knew existed.  You can take vivid, color, HD pictures from your phone and half dozen other sources.  Detail is down to the freckle and anything is viewable from gore to porn 24/7.  If you're not pushing the limits of the law, economics, social norm, etiquette, opportunity, politics and geographic location, you simply are not living.  The stark reality of the age we live in is all around us and is captured in millions of megapixels and posted on every social media available for all to see.  News is around the clock and we're so bored with entertainment that we have had to go to a reality-based world of the bizarre and unexpected.  Music is graphic and explicit.  You're in everyone's business and everyone is in your face, including apps that give a blow-by-blow of your day and every move you make. Everyone wants their 5 minutes of fame.  Your job has you traveling around the world as well as your spouse's and the kids are left to fend for themselves, explaining the lack of social manners and ability to interact. Dinner is a free-for-all, rarely ever all sitting down at the same time.  This is living.

I remember my Dad telling me about him hitting a can down the alley with a stick for fun.  For us, we left the house at 8 a.m. and usually didn't come back until dark, playing in the woods and riding our bikes, etc.  At Christmas, I would spend more time playing with the box that things came in, making something out of it, rather than the actual present.  Nowadays, kids need everything to be interactive and they need to be entertained continuously.  Imagination, a thing of the past, has been replaced by minutely-detailed, graphic reality. They grow up so fast and are exposed to so much so early.  Their childhood is stripped from them early in their teens, a time where I was still playing with my Matchbox cars and Barbie G.I. Joe.  And most have had sex by the same time.

I would imagine this next generation will look down on the current one as we did on our parents, and so on.  technology will have advanced at a rate that will make today's know-it-alls as ancient as we now are, much less our parents. In closing, the phrase 'don't be in such a hurry to grow up'.   I wouldn't mind seeing life a little more blurred right about now. THAT... was really living.