“When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.”
― Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
I have been thinking recently about age. I recently was speaking to someone I thought was older and more experienced than me, and discovered that she was in fact almost 5 years younger. It made me feel really awesome. I thought about it for a while and I came up with this realization.
I have not yet reached an age where I want to be younger. I don't necessarily want to be older. I like my age. I just like being older than other people.
This might be because I always assume that I am younger. I have a default setting of Bambi. The younger. The inexperienced. The junior partner. When I discover I am older than someone it fills me with this flush of confidence and power. I am the veteran. I know stuff. I am older and wiser and have had experiences this person has not yet. You will learn in time, young Padawan.
I realize this is not actually true. Wisdom and expertise come through experience, not age. But I rarely feel that I have status, so latching on to that feeling helps me to feel that I have power.
It is amazing. In moderation, of course. I need to find a way to feel that I have worth and status in a more permanent way, and this might be the seed of that. Obviously, it is impractical to only hang out with people who are younger than me all the time.
Conversely, as I get older, I realize how much there is to learn. When I was younger, I thought you would get to a point where you knew what you needed to know to be amazing at what you do. I don't think that any one really and consciously reaches that phase. You always see the next step, the next level. Become really good at one thing? You could be better at it, or you could diversify to become amazing in a slightly different element of what you do.
No one is ever truly finished baking. It is a nice thing to realize. We are all learners in different stages of our journey. I had a friend who was fighting with me (stage combat-wise) and I was discouraged because I wasn't sure if we had gotten the fight "right." He said something like there was no right or wrong. There is only "in process." I liked that.
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