Your stories, now

It's still New Year's resolution month, and I had so many... if only it were not so demanding to keep them all front of mind. Some days, my brain's container for new information is like a filing cabinet in disarray; irrelevant distractions can pull me away from focused attention, and therefore writing.

All is not lost, though, in the bean. Here's a terrific article, "This is Your Brain On Oldsterhood" by Peter Moore, published on The Oldster, right when I needed it. 

Given a bit of luck, Moore finds that we can still marshal the brain's astonishing powers, more important than ever to face a world order roiled once again. Especially for North Americans, peace is all we've known unless we visited other countries where we saw what happens when corrupt authoritarian governments rule and human rights are denied. 

After a week flooded with images, op eds, polls and—thanks to Mark Carney at Davos— a brilliant wake-up call, I am left wondering, What about the generations who are starting out now?

"Teach your children well"

If lucky, Moore says, those in the Passage can accrue wisdom—which I believe it's time to share.

If there were one thing I'd impart to my grandchildren now, it is, Think, then act. Their paternal great-grandfather used to tell me, "If you are sure you have 'the answer', you have just begun to think."

Thought, especially critical-thinking skills, can separate fear-mongering from facts, and teach them to identify the motives behind certain claims made in the media that flood their lives even as children.

I want them to hear the stories about their family living and dead who made hard choices. In their tree are both Canadian and American World War war veterans; a Holocaust survivor; immigrants from Ireland, France, Germany, Poland and Russia; recent immigrants from Ukraine; and me, once labelled "the little rebel" after I moved to Canada during the Vietnam War.

I hope that they grow up to become what Bill Moyers called "active citizens" and more generally, decent humans: to vote, organize, and live in a way that strengthens our interdependence. Turn one's hand to what is good, not only criticize what's wrong. 

The role of elders now is to keep calm but not silent, to share histories of sacrifice, displacement, and also, of new starts. This is not their only remit, but if not practiced, the stories will exist only in fragments, dispersed among a few.

Our family history is studded with events of immigration, more often due to war and genocide than to a quest for opportunity: Irish starved off their own land; Russian nobility hunted during the Revolution; a couple whose union began in a World War II displaced persons' camp. 

Each story transmits lessons of power degraded to exploitation; conflict escalated to violence; religious prejudice fuelling murder—and also times of unexpected kindness, a break, a longed-for child, a better future. 

Keeping such history alive is a powerful way to bridge the gap from "it would never happen to us", to "it can, unless I act." Every person who reads this possesses such stories. I wish I could hear them, and I hope you're telling them now.