The following essay was written last week in response to a series of events that has just recently transpired in my life. It really shouldn’t come as any sort of surprise to the people reading this essay when they discover that I feel this way.

Word Count: 869

Exposure to a More

Youthful Perspective

I’m convinced that one of the best ways to maintain a positive attitude about life is to constantly surround yourself with people from a generation or two that’s younger than you. More often than not in my case, one or two decades younger than me. This last observation forces me to state unequivocally that “getting older continues to suck.”

In most of these situations, the young person’s outlook on life comes from a more positive perspective, and the youthful enthusiasm they carry with them is quite often extremely contagious. This association thing always seems to do the trick for me in terms of keeping things fresh, and giving me an upbeat, affirmative perspective on life’s predicaments. Two events happened in the past three weeks that’ve re-confirmed this philosophy for me.

As most of you know, I like to volunteer for a variety of events in this area. One of them is the yearly KOTO ski swap over in Telluride that always happens the second weekend of November. I’ve helped out numerous times in the past, and in the last 6 years since I moved over to this side of mountain, I’ve made it a point to always ask to do event security at the exit of the swap’s public library venue. This allows me to say “hello” to various friends and enemies I developed during the fifteen years I lived over in T-Town. As far as the “enemy” scenario thing goes, being at that exit and watching certain individuals as they walked by (with both parties attempting to ignore one another), allowed me to envision a whole new revenge scenario playing itself out. The sadistic side of me concludes this is very sweet.

Other than coming away from the experience every year with a cold set of feet due to the fact that I always make the mistake of wearing tennis shoes, the experience is a good one. I get to monitor people as they exit with their purchases, partake of the free food available to every volunteer during their shift, and carry on some pleasant conversations with friends I haven’t seen in a while.

This year I came away from the experience with another re-affirmation of this whole youth hang-out philosophy of mine too. The swap organizer is this lady who came on board after I’d moved over here, so we don’t really know each other. Her youthful enthusiasm, as well as that of the other volunteers I worked with, leaves me with an upbeat smile on my face.

Because Telluride is a ski resort town that tends to attract lots of young people wanting to hang out for a while in an outdoor paradise, it was easy to encounter more than my fair share of a varied range of different generations. Thus, allowing me to listen in on a lot of different perspectives throughout my time over there. Things always tend to get chaotic during that first hour of the swap, and fortunately everyone was in a good mood. This alone seemed to make time fly by during my shift. Can’t say enough about the overall experience being a positive attitude adjustment for yours truly.

The next set of events that re-affirms my youth hang-out philosophy relates to the winter job I’ve landed for this year. I’ve managed to get a job working at the local kid’s ski area here in Silverton. In addition to allowing me regular interactions with the youth demographic during the upcoming snow season, the group of guys I’ll be working with seem like a good bunch. All of them are younger than yours truly, and while carrying out a final painting project with another new recruit, I had a chance to get his unique perspective on all sorts of things. Totally original since the guy talked about a lot of generational stuff I only know a peripheral amount about. Nothing like discovering that a lot of the music and pop culture events I’ve liked in the past and followed, he’s just hearing about for the first time. Once again, we get back to my earlier age sucking commentand the truthfulness of it.

Just as a side note, when I mentioned that I did aU.S. Peace Corps stint in Kenya back in the 80s, it blew me away when he asked what Peace Corps was in the first place. Somewhat disconcerting when someone asks about an organization and a part of my life that happened a long time ago, but at the same time has become such an integral part of my philosophy about life and how one should interact with people.

As part of that earlier Raven NarrativesLive Storytelling event I participated in back in early September, I integrated an Aldous Huxleyquote into my presentation that so succinctly crystallizes what I feel is how a person should lead their life.

“The secret of genius is to

carry the spirit of the

child into old age.

This means never losing your

Enthusiasm.”

-Aldous Huxley

Now I don’t claim to be a genius (far from it), but this quote sure hits the nail on the mark.