... and the thing that stuck with me was, by the tail end of that trend, the desperation. Watching people getting old insisting that the things they had and the people they were twenty, thirty, forty years ago were the best and no other experiences could match that. In my day, you kids don't know, nothing will ever be as great as, not realizing that what they're saying to themselves and everyone else is: I believe my life has peaked. This thing I loved 25 years ago was my life's high water mark.
Most of the things I see as core formative experiences growing up don't exist anymore. The world they happened in doesn't exist anymore. Even if I could explain them, they wouldn't mean anything to my kids, or anyone's kids. They were important to me then, important to me now, and to almost anyone else they don't matter.
The world has moved on. It has to be allowed to do that.
I don't think we can build a meaningful future by hammering the present into the shape of the half-remembered past.
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