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The Soapbox: Old and set in your ways? It’s about time to grow up

Sixty-year-old Rob Harding climbs onto The Soapbox to say how unfortunate it is that as people age they seem to get more set in their age and more resistant to change and new ideas.
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Sixy-year-old Rob Harding climbs onto The Soapbox to say how unfortunate it is that as people age they seem to get more set in their age and more resistant to change and new ideas. 

By: Rob Harding

I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my contemporaries. 

I am 60 years old. Not ancient, but certainly well into my prime. One of my grandchildren told me I was old, so maybe I am very much into my prime. 

Now that my grandchild has stamped me with the “old” moniker, I feel that I have some credentials to speak to those from my generation. I have grey hair and firmly believe that no coffee shop should offer pumpkin spice lattes. The days of an impressive physical stature are long gone, or at least hidden under the extra kilos I now carry (actually, well hidden). 

So many of my contemporaries have amnesia when it comes to their journeys through the various stages of life.

I was born in the mid-Fifties. Not the 1850s like my grandchild might think, but the 1950s — although to those born in this present century, I am sure those dates are ancient.

My late teens and early 20s were marked by experimentation and a growing sense that one person could make a difference. We were looking for something new, a different perspective. In all honesty, a purpose. We fought against the Establishment. We protested and spoke out with great enthusiasm, often with only partially thought out ideas, but we knew there had to be change. 

I was driven by both dissatisfaction with the prevailing perspective and a need to feel relevant.  

The Communist Party held a strong attraction for me. My poor father had very few tools to deal with the onslaught of ideas that I was considering. I needed new perspectives. I needed experiences. 

In those days, the Communist Party was the great evil in this world. I remember the Vietnam War, where to some degree, our armies were there to stop the Communist horde. Those Communists were blamed for everything from controlling the weather to mind control techniques to attacks on our financial systems. They were a cancer that had to be stopped. 

Wars were fought, politicians made a career from ferreting out Communist sympathizers.

During one election, I voted NDP. For some time, my father wouldn't speak to me and when he did it was to tell me that they were a godless group wanting communism in this country. Our conversations became increasingly strained.

This was an age when the politics of fear took root. There were commercials with little substance screaming about the evils of marijuana or Communism or homosexuality. In fact, as I look back it wasn't so much a warning my elders were giving me, but an expression of their fear of change. 

I can't remember how many times I heard about the “Good Old Days” as if they were something to worship and attain. 

Truth was, the good old days were not as good as many said they were. Change is a prerequisite for humanity. The politics of fear, while playing to a basic human emotion and espousing the need for freedom, actually worked to take away my freedom. 

To put it simply, you agreed with the status quo or you were ostracized. You were labelled a radical. Ideas were good as long as they supported the current and past trends. Change scared us.

Yesterday has become today. The election south of us has raised fear to new levels. Today, it is not the Communists but Muslims. 

In our own Parliament, it was suggested we should have a “Values Test” for people coming to Canada. What a Canadian Value is, I am not sure, but if it has something to do with stopping for coffee at Timmies, I am all about that.

Our intolerance for new ideas and perspectives continues to grow. An acquaintance of mine once wrote a letter to the editor about her neighbours. They were Chinese and she didn’t like the smells that came from their cooking. She wanted a bylaw passed prohibiting this smell. 

Again, I guess Canadian Values have something to do with smell.

I was in a grocery store here in town and was wandering behind a group of Asian students. It was obvious that they were just a few weeks into this country and were speaking to each other in their own language about the displayed goods. A man, my age, turned to them and spoke very harshly that “this was Canada and they should use English.” 

So maybe English is a Canadian Value.

First Nations people have known the sting of hatred from being different more than many. Maybe so-called Canadian Values include residential schools, housing and broken treaties.

All of us have heard more than once that “all Natives want is money” and “they’re drunks.” Broad brush strokes. In truth, like all of us, they just want to be treated with dignity. 

Sadly, often it is my generation leading the fear charge. We don't want change. Anything different is wrong. Anyone different must be rebellious, out to get us, or worse trying to effect change.

The only thing I do know from experience is that dialogue and interaction out of a place of respect is the only way to lead change. 

We better figure out how to talk and listen and respect new ideas.

Maybe the real grown-ups are many of our young people who are brave enough to still have ideals and dreams. They have not learned to be afraid of change yet. Maybe they can teach us how to grow up. 

A rotating stable of community members share their thoughts on anything and everything, the only criteria being that it be thought-provoking.

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