From the Sandbox: How old are you? By Edward Harran
August 19th, 2010 by Nirav Devnani
Every day, our community manager, Nirav Devnani, reads through his feed of all Sandboxers’ blog posts. Every Thursday, he chooses the most inspiring, funny or brilliant one and reposts it on this blog. This post has been written by Sandboxer Edward Harran. The original version can be found here.
Age is funny. Such as an arbitary concept when you think about. We see growing up has this kind-of linear process, a progression, a straight line. ‘As you get older, you get wiser’ - or so the saying goes. We use age to segment people, to stereotype, to classify: 14 years-old here, 25 year-olds here, and 70 years old, well, just stay in your retirement village. The cynic in me says that we use age for social hierachy, to determine our own and other people’s positions in life.
Dear World, It is just a number!
And in many cases, these numbers differ depending on culture and context. In China, for instance, you become ‘1’ has soon as you are born; there is no such thing as 6 months old, you are just ‘1’.
I want to start a revolution against the idea of age: the quantitive number we use to determine social mobility. We all grow differently: slow down, speed up, stop. Life is not a race. We are not here to compete. We all operate on our own schedules. And besides, no one ever really grows up. The inner child exists within us all – it is so imporant that you nurture it. In many respects, I am still 10 years old: the dreamer, the curious kid always looking for something. In other ways, I am older, perhaps spiritually. I often feel like I can see through the status quo, in ways that my numerical counterparts don’t seem to.
So, yes, I am 25. But we must remember this: Age is a mentality, not a number.
Ed considers himself an Attention Philanthropist, making it his mission to spread, seed and share awesomeness. He is passionate about how communication technology is rapidly changing our world. In particular, the intersection between open data, social media and social innovation. His aim is to serve the world and make things happen. Right now, he is developing a new Micropatronage investment model.
