I’m an old guy now, so why do I dislike old people? Old people are anathema to progress and far too often dwell in the lament that puts their inability to adapt on display. In this sense, they represent an obsession with an idealized time that no longer exists and can no longer be brought out of the decaying past. What was is not what is.

So what was it about this moment when things were perfect? I’d venture to say it was the time when the now old person was quite young, and their mind was wide open to exploring what was new in their day. What made that day “their” day? They were likely still exploring the things that would form their outlook as an adult, but then routine jammed its reality into their existence, and they never escaped its clutches.

Out of that routine, people emerge when the boredom of their lives becomes overbearing, but then they realize they are out of sync with all the changes that happened while they were working or raising children. Now, they resent a world they no longer understand.