Age & Scope

with age, are you becoming:

  • more open minded to new things, ideas, ways of looking at the world

    Votes: 5 23.8%
  • more set in your ways and beliefs, and less curious / accepting of the unfamiliar

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • both

    Votes: 10 47.6%
  • neither

    Votes: 2 9.5%

  • Total voters
    21

zhao

there are no accidents
as we are all of us getting (presumably) a little bit older with each passing day, do you think you are becoming more set in your ways and your tastes, more resistant to new things, or are you becoming more open minded, receptive, and appreciative of a greater variety of what the world has to offer?

common sense would have us believe that with age naturally comes a narrower mind. I refuse to accept this.
 

LRJP!

(Between Blank & Boring)
FWIW I’ve been thinking along these lines myself lately.

For me there’s a tension between a voracious and inquisitive movement and a more restrained attitude - holding back, consolidating, minimising...

Is change the only way to live?

Is it good to be unable to properly retrace the steps you took to where you are now?

That biblical quote (badly remembered): When I was a child I spake as I child… when I grew up I put away childish things… when does that process stop? And should it?

Sophomoric and sloppy thinking i guess, but it's the best i can do.

I’ve no answers, so I’m not voting ;)
 

henry s

Street Fighting Man
I find I'm becoming more open than close-minded as I decline, er, I mean age...

maybe restless is a better way to describe it...when I was younger, I would lock in on an artist I liked...(musical artist, that is)...a total completist, I would hunt down everything I could get by them, past and present...now, if say, the Avalanches were to drop something new tomorrow, I'd be all like, "you again?"

the thrill of discovering a new world is greater (to me, now) than the comfort of the familiar...(yeah, I guess that's probably why I ain't married...you try telling that to my mom)...
 

carlos

manos de piedra
i voted for "more set in your ways"-

honestly, i don't think i've ever met too many people who were seriously "open minded to new things, ideas, ways of looking at the world"
 

PeteUM

It's all grist
I was having a discussion with my mate yesterday about monogamy versus enlightened sleeping around. He's in his 20s and calls himself an anarchist (not trying to be snide here) and I had to pick my words pretty carefully to avoid sounding like a conservative old fuck. :(
 

nick

A Day in the Life
The young can be conservative too...

..and sometimes it's the flipside to that ability to "lock on" as mentioned above - focussing on something to the exclusion of everything else means just that - excluding other things, ruling out other options.

Of course that's not necessarily a bad thing... (see blissblogger et al's discussions passim on purism, dilletantism, either/ or) .. and of course it often takes you deeper into new territory, faster.

But when you're young you often lock on to something for very conservative reasons - fear of the unknown, for example, the worry that you might be overwhelmed if you step outside your specialist field. The need to limit the choices available in order to make headway. Or ignorance - it's always easier to dismiss something when you don't know anything about it, and when you're young, the chances are there's a lot of stuff you simply haven't had a chance to get to grips with or fit into context.

Surely this is something you lose with age. There's less sense that your tastes define you - it's more the other way round - so you can try on anything for size. It's a lot easier to admit to ignorance as well, when you're fairly confident that in other areas of your life you do actually know something about something, so you have fewer qualms about appearing a total novice. Plus there's - how to put this - a richer texture to your knowledge, which means there are more possible ways that you can fit something new into the scheme of things without having to re-jig the whole thing, and disrupt some fragile emerging identity.

Of course, that may make you old and bland, with a sort of benevolent smiling interest in everything and no focus - although that's not to say that you can't have tastes that are diverse and discriminating at the same time. But being bland isn't the same as being conservative/ narrow minded.

I think that there can be a process whereby early conservatism mellows and broadens its perspective with time. Perhaps for some people the accumulation of confidence and knowledge is actually a necessary first step before expanding their horizons.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
carlos said:
honestly, i don't think i've ever met too many people who were seriously "open minded to new things, ideas, ways of looking at the world"

surely there are gaps between how we view ourselves and how openminded we actually are.

in the past year, I become a vegetarian (among other things) - and god knows how I used to love my steaks and pork-chops, and how I would make fun of vegetarianism... I think this is indicative of an open mind, atleast compared to myself 2 years ago.

and like Nick pointed out, I used to be so much more conservative than I am now, in all of the ways he described (fearful, dismissive, etc). now I really do feel like I can learn something from everyone I meet, and appreciate loads of things I didn't before.

provided I'm only 30, but I don't see this process reversing anytime soon.
 

martin

----
I don't think age necessarily restricts your scope, you just have more of a clue what works for you and what doesn't. I doubt I'll ever read a Burroughs or Bataille book again, or buy another Nurse With Wound album, I've got a bit of a 'been there, done that' mentality about a lot of pop cultural things, but I wouldn't slag them into the ground or try to turn people off them. I ended up giving a load of back issues of 'Vague' to someone at work whose younger brother is currently interested in all that jive, I doubt I'd ever re-read them tho I enjoyed them and picked useful bits out of them at the time.

I suppose I've become a lot less tolerant of certain traits, I can't stand rudeness (as in people who can't even say 'please' or 'cheers' to hard-working bar staff, nor acknowledge doors being held open for them, and idiots who think they've got some exclusive right to a square foot of personal space on the tube), sneering and attention-seeking cynicism, intense self-pity, and Marxism ;)... However, these are all subjective and I don't feel the need to holler about them, I just try and avoid them. Despite some dodgy experiences though, I still wholeheartedly retain my faith in humanity and plead for compassion and respect for all, regardless of their tribe.

Plus, I really want to fire off a bazooka at some wildlife before I die.
 
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