Twenty-five years ago today, I bought a business. Today I am 47, so you can do the math. If age is just a number, then society is the timekeeper. I was young, ‘younger’ than most 22-year-olds now. Kids are older now, more mature. Yet some fool in a bank gave me a loan, a large loan to buy a business at a young 22. I dare you to find a bank that would provide a 22-year-old today that same loan in the same circumstances. It would not happen. It would not occur because the people making the decisions know what they were like at that age and think they would not have deserved that chance… and they might be right. So we punish the young now by transferring our ignorance to them. We have erased risk to the point that mistakes are no longer tools to learn from. In doing so, I feel we are silencing a generation and then turning on that same generation and calling them lazy. The math does not work.
Yet, the math is simple. ‘Older’ make the rules, based on the behaviors ‘older’ think they should have been held to. Then judges ‘younger’ based on those made-up rules – the answer or sum, ‘older’ gets mad at ‘younger’ for questioning the system they had no hand in creating. The older I get, the more respect I have for youth. I love when they challenge things, get us riled up. Maybe it is the graduation I photographed yesterday and the speeches on the future and opportunity, or perhaps it is the thoughts of the 22-year-old me being told NO so many times before that yes. I will always root for youth over experience. Someone has to because if no one did, 25 years ago today, I would not have bought a business. End of rant. Thank you for joining my Ted Tim Talk.
tr/trp
Congratulations on 25 years. Wishing you many more with interesting views along the way.
Tim, You are a philosopher (lover of sophia/wisdom) you and your photos are call and response storytellers.