10 years makes a difference

So here I am talking to my best friend who is approximately 10 years younger than me. He's telling me about how he's going to video himself doing certain things to post some video of himself on his blog so people can have an experience of him.

I'm thinking to myself, why does he care? Well he's got a book out and he's got some other books he wants to write so he's looking at how to penetrate the noise and get some exposure. So he's telling me about how he's buying this new "flip" video camera that he carries in his shirt pocket and uses to video himself teaching, or leading a program, or golfing etc., just the ordinary things he does, to use on his blog.

In the course of this discussion, I learn there's yet another technology out there that I don't know about - this little 1080 video camera - and there's a process by which you can take video's and post them on your blog. And I hear the voice in my head saying, "Jesus, give me a break! Another technology to master? When will they stop?

I then hear the voice noticing the difference between Jeff's (my friend) thinking and mine. He's all hyped and excited about using this new toy as he calls it, and doing this work, while my voice sounds more like it's annoyed. It's occurring in my thoughts as yet-another-thing-tp-contend-with, and I hear another voice - this voice has a different sound, as though there's more than one person in my head watching, listening, and commenting - I hear this other voice wondering, "When did it become a chore instead of fun for you? When did the fun of learning new things and doing things you hadn't done before stop being fun for you? Is that what it means to get old?"

I mean I can still remember when that same conversation with Jeff would have sent me scrambling to get one of these toys and learn how to do this kind of thing and post it on my blog. Does ten years make all that much of a difference? Does our thinking, and do our passions change that much, that quickly? Ok, so as to not make it threatening I should ask it it as "Has my thinking, and have my passions changed that much, that quickly? In just ten years?

So I know to a causal reader this isn't exactly an up sort of inquiry? It could sort of make this Senior Moment business seem a bit gloomy, couldn't it? Well not necessarily! I may not go about things the way I used to, given by newness and urgency, but I still get there - there meaning where I ultimately want to be. And there's a certain peacefulness in knowing, I mean really knowing in my bones, that I'll never get it all done.

Now, where do I find one of these Kodak flips?