Generation Gap:))

“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”   

 George Orwell

Sometimes I wonder if generation gap is just the difference in the number of years and in the way of thinking between two generations or something more?  Of course there is a lot of difference in the way each generation thinks.

 Some time ago I had started reading ‘ Lectures on Ramayana’ by V S Srinivasa Sastri.  These lectures were given in the Madras Sanskrit College Grounds in 1944. In the first lecture Srinivasa Sastri, says,  ‘he is filled with grief and sorrow that the  Ramayana is not quite as familiar  to the younger generation as it was to those of the older day.’ I was very amused to read this as the younger generation that he spoke of was my father’s generation. And his generation thinks the same about mine and my generation thinks the same about the younger generation and I think it will go on.:)))

Sometimes  I think this generation gap is that of the arrogance of youth and the stubbornness of old age. The youth believe  everything is in their hands and they can do anything they want to . Of course not everyone does that. I  don’t like  those sweeping general statements. There are many of the older generation who are stubborn as mules and just not ready to accept that others know better than they do. They just do what they want to do. In a way they take advantage of their age. They believe they can get away with anything they want to. And generally people excuse their behavior by saying that it is old age which makes them so stubborn or that old age is a second childhood. Of course it is different with people who become mentally weak as they grow older. But not everyone becomes mentally or physically weak.

Then why  the stubborness ? The same behaviour on the part of a younger person would be labled as nothing but  selfishness.  

It is very difficult to understand human nature.