youngsters taking over the world

I have no intelligent comment to add about the new UK government, so I’ll just make a personal remark about it.

Last night I looked up both Cameron and Clegg in more detail, simply for curiosity’s sake, and was shocked to discover that they were born respectively in 1966 and 1967. I was born in ’68, so this is the first time that people who could have been my high school classmates will be in charge of things like nuclear weapons and massive budget cuts for a powerful first-world nation.

It was an unnerving realization. When you’re younger you can easily spout about the stupidity of your elders, but in the back of your mind you always have a comforting sense that they’re somehow wiser and more experienced than you and won’t crash the plane. But when they’re roughly the same age as you, new worries arise. You realize how unwise and perplexed you yourself still feel about the cosmos, and the idea of others at the same imperfect developmental stage being able to maneuver world economies and launch wars is pretty disturbing.

But these things happen by stages in your life. I remember the first time I met someone my own age who was a bona fide medical doctor, and that was pretty shocking. Then a few years ago, in Egypt, I met a precocious 26-year-old who happens to be a heart surgeon. I’m sure he’s great at his job, but I would find it uncomfortable to have my heart operated on by someone who grew up asking for Ninja Turtle toys for his birthday.

It also has a disturbing air of finality about it when people your own age start doing things with real consequences for the planet. Everyone starts out as a child, of course, and that implants a sense of permanent apprenticeship in you that can be hard to shake. When you’re 10 or 12 or 17 or more, you have the sense of living a “practice” life that doesn’t really count and the real thing hasn’t started yet. But when you see your own age group peers take over one of the world’s richest and most powerful nations– well, it isn’t practice anymore. I’m in the middle of the real thing, and better get it right. Thanks, Cameron and Clegg, for making me feel about 20 years older this morning.

[ADDENDUM: Formulated as a maxim, “people my own age should not be in control of nuclear weapons.” I’m not saying it’s a rational proposition, or that it’s more reasonable for older people to have such weapons, I’m just expressing my initial honest gut reaction to these guys taking over. I still clearly remember when people our age were playing with plastic dinosaurs in sandboxes. We’re not ready for real armageddon weapons, no.]