With their unique pen and their own sensitivity, artists present their vision of the world around us. This week, we are giving free rein to columnist and author Olivier Niquet.
I like going to concerts. And when I say concert, I’m talking about events that stir a little more than the Boucherville symphony orchestra or the Magog opera. I like artists generous with their energy and their decibels who encourage the public to let themselves go. I myself sometimes wiggle my hips, or at least, nod with enthusiasm. It’s the farthest my self-respect allows me to go.
Since adolescence I attend this kind of show and I have only recently noted a certain inadequacy between myself and the rest of the public. That is to say, I have white hair and I feel like I stand out in the crowd that comes to see a post-punk quartet or a singer who is not yet 30 years old. Is there a maximum age to discover new artists? How to not look like an old man who wants to look young, apart from avoiding filming said concerts with an iPad?
I could dye my hair, but since it has never happened before in the history of mankind that a man with dyed hair passes for anything other than a man with dyed hair, I fear that it will rub off on my image. I could get a tattoo of one of the favorite words that our young people say all the time. “Wesh”, “Quaicoubeh”, or even “After my game”. But the language evolves so quickly that I would risk “passing the date” even faster. I could also roll and roll, wear cutex or oversized pants to look cool, but the trickery would be too obvious.
It happens to me more and more to live these moments of lucidity where I realize that I am the age that I am: 44 years old. I imagine that the phenomenon increases with age. Recently, I was in a licensed establishment in Rouyn-Noranda, in the shade of the chimneys, when I started to tell an anecdote featuring a comedian from Watatatow. The five twenty-somethings sitting at my table quickly made me realize through their blank stares that we weren’t from the same era.
At that moment, I could have easily fallen into the trap of those who say that young people today have no culture. It’s not that they don’t have a culture, they just don’t have the same culture. They do not know Watatatow like me, I don’t know La Ribouledingue.
I’ve gotten to a point where sometimes I have to make a mental note that I’m no longer my age, but I’m not the only one.
A Danish study from 2006 showed that adults over 40 perceive themselves to be around 20% younger than they actually are. That would bring me to about 35 years of mental age, an age where it is still acceptable to frequent the mosh pit an Aussie garage rock concert without looking like a dog bowling. That would explain why so many people, to be in line with their inner youth, have their faces renovated.
Conversely, the study also revealed that those under 25, on average, felt older than they really were. They undoubtedly consider themselves more independent, wise, solid than their age implies. This means that in Rouyn, we were actually six thirty-somethings rather than one forty-something and five twenty-somethings. Equal in our subjective age (and our arsenic consumption). So I had only been betrayed by my reference to a teen show from the 1990s. And by the white hair.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Social networks bring out an impressive number of people who have the mental age of a 5-year-old child, but whose avatar suggests that they are a woman, a man or a middle-aged kitten. Conversely, some are so attached to their ideas from the 19e century that they seem to be 154 years old in their heads. There are even those whose job in the media is to complain about the ideals of young people these days.
The age felt is therefore not always a reflection of what one looks like. By seeing ourselves younger than we are, we probably want to make ourselves believe that we are still relevant and useful. I know young old people who have decided not to board the Internet bandwagon thinking that fashion will pass. Conversely, my 101-year-old grandmother was still on Facebook not too long ago.
There is no harm in preferring to stay in the past if you don’t reject everything from the present. There is no harm in preferring the present if we are also interested in the past.
It appears that many have decided at some point that they were going to stay in the comfort of the music they listened to when they were 20 years old. So much the better for Madonna and the Rolling Stones who continue to surf on it. I like discovering original bands, up-and-coming artists, new styles, even if it means looking like an old man who thinks he’s young.
It’s easy to lock our preferences into a past that feels better to us, but there are walls between generations that shouldn’t exist. That’s why I try to at least break the sound barrier.