Editorial
Margaret Sadler | Associate Editor, news&views
The Change Gene
I’ve just spent two weeks with a ninety-one-year-old who’s annoyed that I
don’t understand what it’s like to be ninety-one in this technological age.
It’s true that I’m not over ninety, so I am limited, but then I submit that she
doesn’t understand what it is to be sixty-eight in this era. We both check our
email regularly and she’s been known to google topics she’s curious about.
But it’s the old story of one generation not ‘getting’ another, isn’t it? Even
within the category of ‘seniors’ these days, there are different generations.
So much changes from one
decade to the next that our
experience in each stage of life
is different from the previous
generation’s experience. A
great uncle is quoted in 1910
as not getting work at the new
Ford business in Detroit, since
Henry Ford claimed he had
all the workers he’d ever need.
Our favourite quote from my
grandfather when he heard
that the 401 highway was being
built across southern Ontario in
1950 was that “there’ll never be
enough cars to fill it.” My mother
would be amused to hear people
apparently chatting to themselves
in a public place today.
It’s a challenge for us to accept
change and yet we’ve lived
through — and have apparently
accepted — a lot of our own
changes. My nephew — who was
born when I was a teenager — is
now a grandfather. That alone
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is amazing to me but in other
news, he didn’t learn the imperial
system of measurement, only the
metric. Did you learn to calculate
math problems on a slide rule?
How many other technologies
have changed in your lifetime?
How then do we expect things to
stop now? Why do we want things
to stay the same?
Apparently, death and taxes are
the only certainties. Everything
else will change, which means
that we can’t rewind time and do
things the way they used to be
done. Neither governments nor
businesses can be run like it is
still 1960. But we needn’t despair:
there’s always hope — hope that
the human spirit and innovation
will carry us safely into this new
world. New technologies cover
an amazing range of possibilities
from making it easier to keep
in touch with loved ones to
saving lives; from simplifying
meal preparation to capturing
the energy of the sun to power a
household. Medicine, technology,
and even the United Nations
have already reduced many
tragic situations—plague, famine,
world wars. Universal health
care, public infrastructure, and
Indigenous reconciliation efforts
have all made our Canada a
better place.
We don’t know what will come
next, futurists notwithstanding.
We don’t know what the world
will look like in a generation. Our
own picture of life in ten years
is, no doubt, small when held up
to eventual reality. Within that
changing world is the inevitable
change of the familiar. Just as
society changes, so do parts
of that society. Rotary clubs,
Kinsmen clubs, the Order of
the Eastern Star, Freemasonry,
churches — aren’t what they used
to be… and won’t be what they