Lee Zimmerman’s Senior Survival is presented by
No one can deny the telltale signs of aging. The body tends to slow down, the senses may start to dim and there are times when it’s simply difficult to get up out of a chair without expending extra effort. Yet while energy may be lacking, the brain often goes into overdrive. Expertise and experience shift the weight from agility to intellect, and with that wisdom come reason and respect.
Or at least we hope so…
Granted, those rewards don’t come easily. There’s a lot to contend with these days — division, discord and distrust, not to mention the new technology that seems to have overtaken our ability to connect one-to-one with actual human beings. Yes, I’m talking AI, once the stuff of sci-fi, but nowadays every bit as ominous and intimidating as the spooky scenes that shocked us as kids in the darkened movie theaters of our Saturday matinees.
I’ll admit it right now — I’m not technically astute. Far from it, in fact. I don’t do well with bar codes, passcodes, cryptocurrency, unintelligible instruction guides or so-called communication guides that demand we jump through hoops in order to get answers to our questions.
After all, even getting a simple, intelligible response is a challenge these days. And don’t even get me started on the subject of surveillance. We have to constantly be on the lookout to prevent our phones, computers and financial information from betraying us.
It’s scary stuff! A lot scarier than those sci-fi movies I mentioned a moment ago.
Then again, I’m at a distinct disadvantage. I often equate my level of comprehension with that of the apes who filled the screen in the opening scene of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Remember them? They tossed bones in the air to use as makeshift tools.
That’s me… or at least that’s me trying to figure things out.
Then there was HAL, the ominous computer that more or less commandeered the spaceship later on. HAL’s persona seems to have come into its own lately in real life. Yet he’s almost archaic compared with the AI we encounter today. When we hear warnings about robots communicating among themselves, reproducing on their own and plotting to drive human beings into extinction, one might easily imagine that HAL’s descendants have evolved into evil, like-minded offspring.
Just think… “2001: A Space Odyssey” supposedly took place 25 years ago!
But the warning signs go back even further. Take George Orwell, for example. His novels “Animal Farm” (1945) and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1949) were powerful warnings against totalitarianism, government surveillance and the manipulation of truth.
There are likely any number of political wannabes who consciously or unconsciously adopted those books as their bibles.
The question is: Where is the line between reality and science fiction these days? It’s truly hard to find.
We were once told that advances in technology were destined to make life simpler and more efficient. I’m not sure I believe that. When my phone or computer intimidates me because I don’t understand it, I feel like the kid on the playground who’s always the last to be picked for touch football because he doesn’t have the skills of the bigger kids.
Physical bullying has morphed into cyberbullying. There’s not much that’s scarier — or more dangerous — than that.
So now I’m that kid, albeit in a grown-up body, who’s intimidated, lacking in confidence and capability and generally unable to tap into the technical trappings of the modern world. I’m forced to rely on others to help me find my way through, even when it comes to things that most folks find fairly simple… scanning bar codes, finding links on my computer and, at times, downloading an attachment.
I often feel like the guy who has to ask someone else to unscrew the top of a jar because it’s on so damn tight. It’s just another indication of weakness and incompetence.
Indeed, some folks criticize me for not being “with it” and for being unwilling to adapt to change. To them, I’d simply say this: There comes a point in life where hard-won knowledge, insight and expertise ought to be enough. One should expect a certain amount of respect for the common sense and skills accumulated over a lifetime without having to deal with the condescending attitude of those who insist we seniors need to reboot in order to survive. What about those who have spent their entire lives working within the system and mentoring others along the way?
Was Rodney Dangerfield so wrong when he once pleaded with people to show some respect? Ah, Rodney, where are you now when we need you the most?
