Perspective, i.e. oh god I'm old

[jethrien]

So I was thinking about that last history book I read, about Southeast Asia. It discussed the Vietnam War as relatively recent history, moving seamlessly into the fall of the Soviet Union and then into stuff I think of as "modern times".

And I realized something truly terrifying.

So the fall of Saigon, to me, is history. It's something that happened a long time ago. Almost 40 years, right? Way past, totally over it, move along.

The fall of Saigon was in 1975. The first Gulf War, which I clearly remember, which my father fought in, which is totally just the recent past, was in 1991.

More time has elapsed between now and Operation Desert Storm than elapsed between Desert Storm and the fall of Saigon.

Well. That just put a bunch of history into perspective. Yeesh.

Comments

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Anything that happened before you can remember, is Older than Dirt. Anything that happened after, is Quite Recent.

This is all there is to it :)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously. But I think part of what's shocking to me is that I've realized I think of "history" as connected and "recent events" as connected, but don't connect the two as well as I should. My brother is in Iraq right now partially because of Desert Storm. The Vietnam War happened because of French colonization. But in my head, the Cambodia of Khmer Rouge and the Cambodia of today are two different places, and the fact that Khmer Rouge was basically in charge until 1993 is shocking. Making the continuity jumps is surprisingly difficult. Which also is terrifying when I realize that China's been nonaggressive for a relatively short amount of time and the idea that they're biding their time until they build up economically and militarily enough to seize the South China Sea is not actually that implausible. Just because I don't remember a time when China was an active threat doesn't mean they aren't.

[maydove.livejournal.com]

We're oooooold!!

This really hit it home for me:
http://xkcd.com/891/

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Little Mermaid thing was just kind of jaw-dropping.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

I just had to check the math for myself. Jesus...

[maydove.livejournal.com]

Also, I find it disconcerting that I still kind of think of the 90's as "present-day" and feel like I'm living in "the future" (2010's).

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I got this when I was thinking about my 13-year-old niece, who was born in 1998.

When I was in high school, roughly 1986-1989, I was big into the 1960s (being as it was kind of a fad at the time). Hippie trappings, Haight-Ashbury, 'classic rock', John Lennon glasses, peace signs, all that stuff.

'All that stuff' was almost exactly 20 years in the past, culturally. Which of course sounded like absolutely ancient history when I was 14.

So it's 2011. Twenty years ago was, as you say, 1991. I was halfway through college then; granted, it was still more than half my lifetime ago (though barely, at this point). But relatively speaking, it sure as hell feels like "present day" in terms of my personal sense of history. Gah.

And, the all-but-mythological "summer of love" in 1967 was five years before I was born. The equivalent for my niece is 1993. So, the George HW Bush administration is as far in the past to her as Lyndon B. Johnson was to me: practically lost in the mists of time.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Being old is going to be weird. :)