On the basis of what he says, your stepdad is an example of the OPPOSITE of this, isn’t he?
No they weren’t. They were from the majority of contemporaries of the ones who demonstrated against the war who did not take part, who kept their heads down and their noses clean (or maybe brown).
Both the kids who were left-wing demonstrators in the '60s, and the oldsters who were right-wing demonstrators more recently, were a tiny minority of their generation. It is unlikely both statistically and in terms of the political attitudes that were operating in each case, that any significant number of them were the same individuals.
While you’re wondering why they’re being so stubborn by not wanting to change, they’re wondering why you are being so stubborn by insisting on changing something that has always worked.
My dear old Grandaddy is 82. He’s always been stubborn. He’s always been a difficult person. He still is, even at 82. I am lucky that I have had him wrapped around my little finger since birth (he was there, Daddy was in Vietnam and he’s adored me ever since). He’s gotten even more difficult and stubborn with age and there are times that I am the only one who can convince (plead/wheedle/cajole/threaten tears) until he does something he really has to do (physical therapy so he can walk, for example.)
He’s well past changing his views on race or religion. I gave up years ago, and decided I would rather have a relationship with him than not. (Put my foot down about what he could say in front of my kid and left it at that.) I get the feeling with Grandaddy that he’s not stubborn about change - and I just mean environmental change - now just to be difficult, it has a different sort of flavor to it now. Now it seems like he’s frightened of change. He has a routine and it works even when it really doesn’t. He doesn’t walk very well and his eyesight is failing. If you ask him to change anything - even the way he thinks about something - he just freaks right the hell out even if it’s for the better.
Case in point - he’s always been a bit of a slob. Always. His house was always a mess. (My Grandma left him in the 50s so he’s always lived alone or with family.) Now that he has difficulty walking, he can’t bend well enough to pick things up off the floor and refuses to use the gripper thing the physiotherapist gave him, cause he doesn’t like those things (so, there’s refusal to change the way you do something, see?) So the last time I visited my husband and I at his request cleaned out closets, moved around some furniture, cleaned out cabinets (and let me tell you, if someone puts a George Foreman grill away dirty 3-5 years earlier it doesn’t magically get clean in the meantime.)
While we were doing that I had to get down on the floor to put together a chair and noticed he had black mold grown under his aircon - the place smelled horrible anyway (note above George Forman grill/Grandaddy is a slob) but now I knew why it smelled worse that I thought it should. So I told Grandaddy, and did the wheedle/cajole/plead trick and got him to let me talk to managment, and they came after we left to clean his carpet, fix the aircon and remove and treat the mold.
So as a result of this, I copped it. I got yelled at for weeks - he couldn’t find anything, I messed up all his stuff, the people who came in to clean moved things around and didn’t put them back exactly where he said. Why did I turn up and meddle in his business (because he asked me to do exactly that, of course) and why couldn’t I just leave him alone to die? And did I know they let niggers and spics in his house to do all this stuff? (See above about him being a racist, and sorry for any offence by using the words.) Just hateful, ugly things.
But if I listened to what he was really saying it sounded more like, “I’m old. I can’t do things it seems like I could do just yesterday. I’m scared. I miss you. I don’t think I’ll ever see you again before I die. I don’t like not being in control. It makes me angry.”
Doesn’t mean I didn’t tell him off (I learned years ago that boundries must be set with Grandaddy or he runs right over you and he’s just not allowed to say certain things to me) but I let a lot of stuff slide even though it was hurtful enough to make me cry when I got off the phone.
So stubborn? God yes. Unable to change his views? Can’t, I don’t even try.
But I don’t think it’s mere stubborness. I think with him and some folks like him, it’s also fear.
Wisdom for the ages.
A point.
Learning NEW things should IMO always be fun and exciting, given of course said person having some interest in it. And as we age, let’s face it, our enthusiasm and energy levels drop, not to mention the mental ability to actually do so.
But, there is difference between learning to do NEW and DIFFERENT things and learning how to basically do something similiar in yet another new way or something you don’t care to do but are forced by society/circumstances to learn.
The former can be fun. The later ones are a best an aggravation and at worst a PITA.
I loved learning how to work on cars back in the day. I loved playing with computers and doing cool shit with them. The newness and fun of those activities has long since worn off. Learning new ways to do the same shit takes away from learning new shit I haven’t learned about before.
Yeah, you young whipper snappers, sure that computer program does all kinds of cool stuff. Try being enthused when this is your umptempth program you’d had to fight through learning, you’ve had to unlearn what you already knew about the old programs and ways, and this new thing doesn’t do anything you couldn’t do the old way (or if it does, its not a feature you care about).
I know when I’m old. It’ll be the moment when the latest new-and-improved version of Windows makes me fling my computer out of a window.
I’m 67, and many (not all) of my core convictions have changed throughout my lifetime. Even in the last year I’ve changed in certain respects. I think physical changes are relevant here, as your brain is constantly having to deal with new limitations, and that can be the impetus for either making changes in one’s thinking or, in some cases, to hold on to thinking that’s no longer relevant.
Just out of curiosity, what’s the festival?
Looking at this matter from another direction. Non-scientific.
It seems to me that a lot of the people I’ve known who are stubborn tend to live longer than more flexible folks. Sometimes I truly believe being stubborn and refusing to give in helps with one’s health.
I have no proof of this other than personal observation.
I just feel like people are missing out on a lot by refusing to change even when it is indeed better for them. And I personally believe that if you never change, you use your mind less.
Now there are certainly things that I, being “only” almost middle-aged, don’t change either. For example, I haven’t jumped on the social networking bandwagon. But the difference, IMO, is, that I tried it and it didn’t do it for me, so I didn’t continue. I don’t just shut my mind to it and think “kids these days” - an attitude which I think is as poisonous, if not more, than “old people suck”.