For all of our young lives, and certainly to this day, we’ve all heard our parents stare someplace far away and exclaim in wonderment, “Things sure have changed since I was your age.” As the daughter of somewhat older parents (without divulging any real numbers—you’re welcome, Mom and Dad), it never struck me as odd to hear this phrase over and over again. Of course things have changed since my parents were young, I thought; how can they really be so bewildered at the staunch differences between the days of their youth, and mine?
Turns out, I found myself thinking the same baffled thought several times over the course of this summer. Only for me, all I had to do was think roughly ten years back to recall a time when things were so much different. Not necessarily for better or worse, just…different.
One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I sat in synagogue at home in Seattle, Washington and listened as the rabbi gave a speech which he deemed “off the record.” He frankly brought up the Iran deal and noted that just ten years ago, America’s allegiance with and support for Israel had always been a given. Now with this new nuclear plan, that support had seriously been called into question. Pointedly, he asked the congregation to truly consider whether living in America was still the safest choice for Jews. When it came to aliyah, his question was pretty much, “If not now, when?”
Although I was very young, I remember a time when American politicians, especially the president, would talk about Israel and America as countries with shared values such as democracy, freedom and equality. Just ten years ago, it seemed easy for our leaders to recognize the similarities between America and Israel and to advocate for Israel’s safety and continuity as a Jewish state. Although many media outlets have made an effort to evaluate the Iran nuclear deal as one that actually ensures a more tightly monitored Iran, it’s hard for us as Jews to really see it that way.
On a far different plane, I had another realization about the changes rapidly occurring around me when I opened my Instagram one day in July to find a shocking photo of Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair. As her story slowly started to unfold, Jenner told reporters that it was only now that she felt ready to become the person she truly is. Finally sensing that the world was ready to accept her, and she ready to accept herself, Caitlyn emerged.
Once again I was struck with the realization that things were not as they used to be. Ten years ago as a middle schooler, a time that I can definitely remember, I found out that one of my friends had homosexual parents. I remember that was not the most unusual thing I had ever heard, having understood the notion already thanks to the crass jokes tossed around in the sitcoms at the time. But certainly ten years ago there never would have been a reference to a transgender person on mainstream television. Now there are many, the majority of which come to support the transgender community.
If you haven’t caught my drift by now, let me hit you over the head one last time with another illustration. When I was ten years old, my mom—a successful, professional businesswoman—came home one day with the newest gadget: the Palm Pilot. It was a green and white, stylus driven phone with a keyboard that boasted buttons the size of small frozen peas. She had to plug it into her computer every day before she left work so that she could sync her task list—the only impressive feature, aside from games, that the phone had to offer—onto “the Palm.”
Needless to say, my mom now has a Galaxy, and it does a bit more than keep track of her daily to-dos. It’s twice the size of the Palm yet somehow half the weight, responds to her fingertip, and even talks to her. Not to mention Samsung seamlessly updates it every year and it only gets bigger, lighter and better.
In no way am I making an attempt to equate the significance or profundity of any of these examples. They all touch very different parts of our lives and do not deserve to be lumped together as one colossal event. I am, however, using these universally known observations to share with you just how fast things around us are moving.
When my parents look at the world that has changed around them since college, they are talking of revolutions that occurred in over double the amount of time that the changes I have just pointed out have manifested in our lives. I always thought that I would need to wait until I was at least fifty-years-old to understand the sense of looking back to a time that was so different than the one I was living in.
Turns out, I don’t have to wait. From just ten short years ago, I see a definite change in the politics between America and Israel. In the same ten years, I now witness a movement for the LGBTQ community so profound that it’s led by the most famous athlete in the world. And finally, I can reminisce about an old phone from ten years ago as I await the iPhone 6S slated for release in September—only one year after its revolutionary predecessor.
As things change, evolve and even devolve, I ask you to not let the speed of this momentum prevent you from stopping and asking yourself what these changes mean. Don’t just get mindlessly carried away in the rush of the next big thing. When the next big thing happens, take a serious pause and ask yourself, “What in the world is going on?!” You may even consider taking a moment to write about these thoughts, a process which could lead you to a pretty impressive article for the next issue of this fine paper.
That last part was my plug to get you to write. But really I’m just asking you to stop, drop and think.