The Old vs The Young

Old people have always been considered centers of wisdom; whether or not we respect them for it, most people recognize that old folks have a lot of life experience on the rest of us.

But I was listening to Guy Clark's "Texas, 1947" just now and I realized that in the last 100 years or so it's much more common to view younger people as centers of knowledge. The song was written about the first time he ever saw a Streamline train out in west Texas:

Trains are big and black and smokin', louder'n July four,
but everybody's actin' like this might be somethin' more

than just pickin' up the mail, or the soldiers from the war.
This is somethin' that even old man Wileman never seen before.

Not anymore, kids. Anyone under 20 has seen hundreds of things that their grandparents haven't seen--or even dreamed of. Today's youth certainly face a whole different world. And noone can deny that. With the coming of technolgy and this ongoing race, no doubt that todays youth is more crazy about knowing everything about anything than our grandparents did at our age. With the passing of time, this vew age actually requires us to know more than ever. And I bet we know more of the facts of WWI and WWII than our mothers and fathers-- just because we need to be able to KNOW. Whether it be to show off or to compete, todays generation is undeniable more aware of their surroundings.

I wonder what that does to our sense of wonderment about the world around us...