The March of Time Makes Luddites of Us All

I was always more technically savvy than my contemporaries but it was just a matter of time...

While I've never been an I.T. professional, I've tried to keep myself versed in emerging technology. I was late to the cell phone bandwagon but once there were smartphones, I was all in. I had accounts with MySpace, Napster, Friendster. I loved those early message boards. I was an early blogger just as it was coming into vogue. Facebook? Check. Twitter? Check. Instagram? On it.

For my friends and family through the early 21st century, I was the cheap alternative to an Apple Genius Bar appointment. I had to learn theater stagecraft technology and I often prided myself in the ability to solve computer problems on the fly.

My father was a paper and pen sort of guy in his real estate business but took to the computers (Windows, of course) with relative ease. He didn't exactly like them but he caught on quickly. A few years ago, I realized he and my mom were still using computers that were new when Bush Jr. was in office so I got rid of all the beige boxy PCs and replaced them with brand new iMacs. Mom loved them. Dad hated them. He had aged out in his use for new technology and wanted nothing to do with the new rigs. I replaced his iMac with a Dell knock-off and he was happier but not thrilled. The internet had expanded since he had retired and he didn't like it.

I never thought I'd be like my dad in this respect. I'm a hip GenXer who doesn't think today's music sounds all the same and welcomes the kids to my lawn, right? I mean, I went through the Age of Punk, the Decades of Funk, and lived through both the 1970's when weed and sex were revered and the 1980's when we won the Cold War and celebrated heavy metal. Surely, that Battan March of Aging would not affect me.

Except...

I hate Tik Tok. I tried it for maybe a week and found that it was a combination of vapid, unsubstantive shit and incredibly addictive. After what seemed like thirty minutes of watching mini-videos of thirty year old soccer moms in bikinis, eighteen year old girls claiming to be attracted to dad bods, idiots dancing, and bizarrely a whole slew of videos about pimple popping, boil lancing, and Asian kids with ticks, I looked up and it had been three hours. I threw my $1,200 smartphone across the room and screamed "The Power of Christ Compels You!" then vomited.

I got rid of all of my social media because I discovered it was causing me to hate people I had never met. No more Facebook, no more Instagram, and Twitter is for the digital magazine (@theliterateape) and movie podcast (@ILiketoWatchPod) which I avoid most of the time (Twitter, not the podcast). Today's music does all sound the same to me and if I had a lawn, I'd buy a paintball gun to take potshots at the teens.

I've become the digital age version of an Amish dude with a chin beard and broad-brimmed hat in a horse-drawn buggy.

I still write instead of make videos. I publish a digital magazine that requires people with a longer attention span that a terrier to read. I write books! I play an actual instrument that requires air and buzzing lips rather than ability to sample the songs of my youth for hip hop. I wear cargo shorts. Until my ex-wife broke me of the habit, I wore white sneakers with jeans.

I have grey in my beard!

"Old people should probably just die already."

She was a seventeen-year-old kid in one of the classes for which I was substitute teaching.

"You think so? Just die and get it over with?"

"Die or go away. I don't care."

"How old is old? As in old enough to need to die or go away?"

"Like, fifty."

"Fifty is old? FIFTY?!"

"Yeah. Are you almost fifty or something?"

"I'm almost seven years past fifty."

She did some quick mental math. "You mean you're sixty-three? No way!"

The pandemic has left math skills somewhere swirling down the toilet bowl.

I don't look old. I don't feel old. In fact, just lately, I'm feeling pretty damn good. Out from under the ex-wife who seemed fixated on my age and inevitable demise has been a solid win in that category. Staying with my parents who are in their seventies definitely makes me seem like a younger man. All that said, I'm becoming a Luddite when it comes to new tech. I'm not interested in AR. I'd rather get kicked in the nuts repeatedly than download SnapChat. I avoid Reddit at all costs. For me, the dark web is when I surf DuckDuckGo at night without a lamp on.

You know what? I don't really care. I suppose the benefit of aging is that one simply cares less about keeping up with the kids. It doesn't mean I disdain them—I once was exactly the same and the generations before me looked at my Atari game system with nothing than pixelated Pong, Asteroids, and Space Invaders as somehow inferior to cards and chess.

At this point, I'll adopt new things that work for me rather than just because they're new. I'm solid with that plan and I'll still try out the newest of the new because, hey, why not?