CBS
Baby Boomers were the first generation to grow up with TV–so why can’t we take the next steps? Gen-Y and Gen-X are very right about one thing: Boomers really are big babies, and often arrogant, about Tech. We are above it, some of us think. But we aren’t–and can’t be. Time to grow up.
Boomers: They just don’t [heart] tech enough. For a lawyer, and especially one born between 1946 and 1966, I’m not too bad at science, or even math. Geometry came easily. Calculus not so easily. At my mega-competitive college prep high school in Cincinnati, I was always one of the handful of underachievers in the mega-smart kids’ math class. Those who went on to careers in medicine could always count on me to skew the grades in their direction.
I liked the Humanities much better, and still do. Science, Math, Tech, Numbers. It wasn’t that they were hard; it was that they seemed, at the time, to lack mystery. Nowadays, and in doses, I do like playing with business numbers, market shares, and even budgets. Some people even say I’m good at it. But none of it really turns me on.
Numbers and the often-mathematical elegance of the Universe? Okay, I’m older now. It’s all there–I admit it. But if something has “one” answer, or fits into a recognized theory, or model, it’s still not as interesting to me as things that are, well, more complex, impossible to sort out quickly with Western logic, metaphysical.
I strongly associate “the need for certainty”–either scientific or moral, in either nature or society–with small ideas and small minds. I am sure that I am wrong about that. I am wrong, and wrong-headed, about many things.
Same with the new Digital World. And Word Processing, Document Management, Graphics. Frankly, I don’t like any of “it”–and prefer others (always younger) do “it” for me. Documents especially. I do not like to type them, create them, edit them, manage them, store them and retrieve them. Secretly, I do not even like computers, cell phones, video-conferencing, anything electrical–and never will. I like humans, voices, winks, laughs, sneers, grimaces, smiles, flirtations, handshakes, and bodies in the room.
Boomer lawyers discussing Cicero, Flaubert, existential dread, and EU politics before getting their Tech thing on.