How To Keep Up

Younger people left Facebook for Instagram. When they saw their parents and elders following them, they moved on the Snapchat and TikTok. Who knows the next destination but I, although I haven’t given up, am am not wired for this. I’m also not wireless for this.

Some years ago, in a business magazine, I read that everyone should have a mentor under age 30 because of rapidly changing technology. For younger minds, awaiting a new operating system feels like forever. The analog-oriented ask, “Why do I have to keep updating?”

I asked the then-under 30 Matt Lowe and, more recently, Emily Mata and Kenny Chism to mentor me, both in their mid-20s. They help me, not with tech things (Tim Nafziger, who is over 30 but in touch) but with life itself.

I’m still figuring out pronouns, how to be environmentally sensitive, how to recognize the worth of women and the pain of patriarchy, and how the merits of capitalism that were drilled into me as a youth are restricted and off-limits to most of us.

I am also less hung up over colorful language to pay attention to more significant ideas.

Younger people are indeed my mentors. I won’t discard the elders. I am one. So many of us have entrenched ourselves in value systems that should, if not be jettisoned, should at least be questioned. I have beloved friends my age, but I am not so immersed in those relationships that I cannot respect and hear from powerful young voices who are accomplishing what I dreamed of back then.