I briefly scanned a story yesterday about a woman whose reputation? ability to reason? was being questioned because of some things she posted on a personal blog ten years ago. Right away I saw that such a fate could befall me in the future so I went back ten years in my esteemed life and searched my memory banks (for I was only surfing the web back then) and I also glanced mentally (becuase it was after work and I was too tired/lazy to read some journaling I had done back then, of which there is a LOT) and the conclusion I reached after my painstaking analysis was: "Who IS this guy?"
For I in truth did not know him. I remembered him but we do not think alike anymore, that was readily apparent. People change and boy did I ever. The passage of time and the weathering factor of experiences does that to you and I am sure the same thing happened to our aforementioned woman. It even happened to people I know who I thought would NEVER change.
"Help- I'm in The Matrix!"
(Photo by Markus Spiske- Unsplash.com)
The lady in the article was 49, her blog posts were written when she was 39. Is anybody the same at those two different ages? I doubt it. They might be recognizable, yes, but internally, mentally, what amazingly different thought processses are going on because even though you may be still riding in the same car, the way you see the scenery is different.
For example, when it comes to the present administration, if I was in my 20's they would seem to be powerful slimy old guys but now that I am thirty years older, they're only a class above me in high school, and some of them are even still in grade school, comparatively. So how can I take them seriously? They're like contemporaries and if my level of overall intelligence is any indication, they can't be THAT much smarter than me, and they're running the world!
(Something to think about, and worry about, young people)
Anyway, I wish that whoever is raining judgement down on the woman in question takes inevitable change into account because older people are much more relaxed about things in general. A high percentage of them. While some twenty year olds can be full of fire and be ready for revolution, and some thirty year olds can feel disenfranchised and be rather angry and resentful about it, by the time you hit 49 the talk starts revolving around health and upcoming retirement and grandchildren and other such things. It takes a lot of energy to get fired up about a world you might soon be leaving. But I digress. Truth is, people change, even if what they wrote at some distant time is just a nanosecond ago to the internet. I guess we're going to have to live with that.