I saw three middle aged women ramblers walking up the lane today, and it occurred to me that we had something in common. Cultural conditioning. It led me to wonder how on earth I can expect to relate to today’s young people, since every fibre of their early conditioning was so different from mine. When I was growing up, love songs were about love. Now they seem to be about sex, stress and suicide. I look around and see a world that is largely more sad, sordid and superficial than the one that nurtured me. Maybe that’s just my jaundiced perception, or maybe it’s the reason why retro has become fashionable. I know it isn’t that simple because I know how much I’ve rejected even my cultural conditioning. And I’ve run out of Ss.
I’m reminded, though, that a teenage girl said to me not long ago ‘I want a past.’ Well, she’s going to get one, but it’s one I probably wouldn’t recognise and certainly wouldn’t want to observe. Going with the crowd these days leads to dark, dreary places that my generation knew nothing of. Seems I’ll have to stick with those who stand defiantly apart.
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