Consider some dates:

• 1845-1885
• 1880-1920
• 1910-1950
• 1920-1960
• 1935-1975
• 1950-1990
• 1970-2010

So, I’ve always wanted to know/feel what it was like to live through amazing technological, economic, and political changes.  What does it feel like to pass through such amazing transitions?

Now it dawns on me that everyone forty or over already knows.  In fact, everyone in recent Western history has gone through such dramatic shifts.  Some changes were more dramatic than others, but my impression from the dates above is that no forty-year period was ever static.

And how does it feel?  It feels like someone in the car with you saying, “Did you see that!” and you reply, “No, I’m too busy driving.”  You only have the luxury to notice great change when reading about it happening before your time.  They too were all too busy to see it back then.  But they probably read about others before them in history and wondered what it was like to live through such changing times.

Why yes, I am approaching a birthday and I am over forty.  Why do you ask?