Book Hippo

Monday, June 11, 2012

Changing Attitudes

I always wanted to be an adult when I was a child. It seemed that when you were older, you could do what you wanted. After I grew up I realized that what I thought wasn't true. There are things you have to do that you don't want to do.

But I have found one thing that I never expected at all; and that is how much there is to understand about life and how much you'll look back when you reach a certain age. Just to digress, does anyone about age fifty remember the older people who talked about the Depression incessantly? How boring we thought them! But they knew so much that's all gone now.

Although I'm not real old, I can see a big difference in attitudes, especially since I'm female and I remember the days where, if you were walking with your head up, some busybody man (there was always one) would come and challenge your 'pretensions'. Women with 'attitude' had to be 'put in their place.'

This makes me think of the Victorians, and all the attitudes I'm glad I missed. Can you imagine not being able to wear shorts in summer or even Capri pants? Suppose you had to wear those heavy, itchy wool dresses in winter. Women back in the Victorian age often got very ill because their dress hems, dragging on the ground, would get wet and they would be walking about soaked to the skin. Even in England in was bad, can you imagine in Canada?

I think most young people these days don't understand the past, just like I didn't. I don't talk much about it with them, they will never understand until about thirty years down the road, how much they didn't know. With all the people these days writing on the internet, I think we'll leave more of a record of ourselves than previous people have been able to.

That being said, one last thing I find is that it's a good thing people die. Who would really want to meet a Victorian today? Or a medieval person? We have to make room for the young ones who will take the world in directions we can't imagine.

I do wish the youngsters were a little more respectful, but then, I understand them, another thing is you know they think you're an idiot and you know they have no idea that they're idiots, and you can be satisfied that you understand that.

Well, I'm not ready to die yet but I'm not afraid either. Some day someone will look back and say, "I wish she were here to tell me all the things I didn't want to listen to." Just like I did with my grandmother who talked of WWI. How boring, right? Wrong. But that's life...and death.

Just to leave on a lighter note. Here is the link to a flash fiction that I wrote:


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