I should be dead. So should my wife. So should most Baby Boomers.
In my case, statins saved me. I have naturally high cholesterol, 373 when I got it checked in 2000. My dad (right) had a heart attack at age 47, a decade before this picture was taken.
Statins didn’t exist when dad needed them, but today they’re generic, cheap. Same with my hypertension drug, an Angiotensin Reuptake Blocker (ARB). Without it my blood pressure was erratic in my 40s. In my late 60s it’s steady.
It’s not just my life. My mom went blind in her 50s, from retinal detachments. I just had my second retinal operation. It took 5 minutes. I was back at my desk the next day.
The good news is that Norman Lear and Mel Brooks are still alive. The bad news is, so are Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump.
The assumptions, the beliefs, and the prejudices of 50 years ago still have relevance to those who remember them. That wasn’t the case 100 years ago. Theodore Roosevelt was dead already, age 60. He looked it. He looked like an old man.
The Civil War “Baby Boomers” were old men and women by the 1920s. Those born in the 1880s and 1890s were already taking over.
How can we learn the lessons of history when it’s personal lived experience? We can’t.
That’s a problem.
It’s not just that we’re living in the past. We’re not letting our kids live in this future. People in their 30s are still “the kids.” Many still haven’t grown up. Their window into adulthood is closing. It’s a whole generation of Prince Charles’, in every field and endeavor. Maybe that’s an extreme case, but if you’re 40 and dad’s still running the company how can you put your own stamp on life?
I’m not retiring. But I’m not volunteering for leadership. This is my kids’ era. They need to take it. But they’re not being given it. We’re not applying the lessons of their youth, of 9/11 and the Obama years, when we’re still obsessed with the Cold War and Jimmy Carter.
The result is that history is slowing, just as it needs to speed up. We’re still fighting 20th century wars, still looking for 20th century energy, still fighting the 20th century’s political battles.
History needs to move on. So do we.
