An intermediate figure in the digital age

Welcome back to Ancient wisdomour Sunday series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, Maureen Ebel, 77, described losing his savings inside Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme – and how she learned to “play the hand you’re dealt.” This week, the great essayist Joseph Epstein, 88, mocks technology at 80.

what goes around comes around: The more things change, the more they stay the same. The author of this maxim is a rightly forgotten Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. I write “rightly,” because no words I know contain less truth than these. The more it changes, the more it changes—the more things change, the more things change – that’s more like it. And no greater change has occurred than that brought about towards the end of my life – I’m 88, if you want to know – brought about by the advent of personal computers, or what is collectively called the digital age.

Some contemporaries of my acquaintance went into computing, but I, a writer and scribbler, was not in a position to do so. Because a large part of the field of writing today relies on computers, including the exchange of manuscripts. Certainly, the computer has brought me many advantages. As a writer, I find that revising compositions on my computer surpasses all previous modes of revision. Scores — that’s hundreds — of times, Google has proven to be a splendid cheat sheet. I have never looked to the computer as my primary source of information, but I have found, and continue to find, many interesting articles on THE Washington Free Beacon, Sub-pile, and elsewhere.

But the negative aspects of so-called digital culture are just as important. Every time I turn on my computer, I’m prompted to sign in to iCloud. I’ve tried signing into iCloud maybe 30 times, but still no luck. No more success than me updating Backblaze, the storage platform, on my computer. Just yesterday I attempted to scan a document and was informed that my scanner was not connected to my computer. Last week he was online. Who the hell, I wonder, disconnected him? When asked if I want to update my computer, I invariably take a pass. Backdating seems much more appealing to me.

I don’t listen to any podcasts, I only read one blog, and I avoid any social media on my computer. I’ve been on LinkedIn for a while, but I find that I’m no longer able to connect with the occasional person who wants to connect with me. Instead, I’m asked to verify my username and reset my password, which when I try to do that doesn’t seem to work. When asked for my username, it’s now all I can do not to put it in Enough alreadyby adding an email address that reads: vis.it@fmail.keepcom.

My wife, who is my contemporary, gave up computer science. I inherited her Apple laptop, but she forgot the password for me to access it. I keep a small red leather folder, offered by the leather goods brand Mark Cross, containing my too many passwords – passwords which are no less than 32 – but this one is not there. I called AppleCare and spent about an hour on the phone with a woman who ultimately couldn’t help me. I’ll have to take the laptop to an Apple Store, in the hopes that they can provide me with a new password. Ah, I worry about the day, perhaps not far away, when we will all need a password to use the toilets in our own apartments.

It’s not just when using my computer that I often find myself stuck. I used to trade in my car every three years, but now I drive an 18 year old car, a Jaguar Type S black. It’s true that my Jaguar only has 57,873 miles on the odometer and its design is, I believe, more elegant than that of more recent models. But the real reason I’ve kept this car, and I hope it will see me out of existence, as the English say, is that the technology in newer cars, designed more and more around computers, is beyond what I need or expect to be able to handle. I prefer to put a key in my ignition to start my car, I prefer not to consult a computer to shift gears, and I don’t need a voice to tell me to turn left at a red light. In short, I am wary – and afraid – of new computer-controlled automotive technology, and will continue to avoid it as much as possible.

My 11 year old Sony TV turned off not long ago. I bought a new Samsung device and immediately discovered new ways to save programs; to use my DVD player; and tune into the Netflix, Prime, and Apple TV+ shows I previously mastered on my dear old Sony TV. Things got so complicated that a kind gentleman from Geek Squad had to come and install this new TV, at a cost of $100. Maybe everything in Kansas City is up to date, like the it’s an old songbut that is certainly not the case with Joseph Epstein.

I don’t often order things online, which, judging by the packages that arrive in the lobby of our building, my younger neighbors do much more frequently than my older neighbors. I order occasionally from Amazon and maybe a little more from AbeBooks, the used book distributor. But other than those two companies, I haven’t had much success ordering online. Two weeks ago, I tried to order two shirts from Jos. A. Bank, the men’s clothing store. After about 40 minutes on my computer, which sent me countless times to my iPhone to reset my password, username, and everything except my hairstyle, I gave up and called customer service to place my order. A customer service agent took about 20 minutes to answer my call, leaving me listening to jumpy music and a robot voice every 40 seconds or so imploring me to stay on the line and reminding me how important my call was to them.

How much of this – computer problems, car and TV problems, shopping difficulties – is because I’m an older gamer? A lot, I suppose. Because alongside my distrust of new technologies introduced with the digital age, there is a certain element of nagging resentment. Why do I have to put up with all these computer shortcuts which, in my case, usually turn out to be shortcuts? Now, in my late 80s, I feel, rightly so, that time is running out for me, and I have no desire to spend anything trying to log into iCloud or waiting for a customer service agent to pick up the phone and answer my call.

One of the temptations of old age is to view your earlier years as better. I’m not sure they were. But they were surely simpler. In Somewhere towards the end, In her excellent memoir on aging, Diana Athill writes: “We tend to be convinced that everything gets worse simply because, within our own limits, things are do it. We are less and less able to do the things we would like to do, we hear less, see less, eat less, suffer more, our friends die, we know that we ourselves will soon be dead. . . It’s perhaps not surprising that we easily slip into a general pessimism about life, but it’s very boring and makes the dreary later years even sadder.” Ms. Athill urges us “not to waste our time going gray.”

A new word for me, “grizzling,” which means “to express annoying dissatisfaction or resentment.” In filing my complaints about the complications brought on by the digital age, I hope that I myself am not simply graying. I realize that I have many reasons to be grateful, including that I have reached old age. The fact that I was able to do this in good health and continue to work in the job I love can only be considered a double bonus. Every night I fall asleep, as the song sayscounting my blessings, and waking up with thanks for the gift of another day.

Yet, yet, but, however and nevertheless, I continue to find annoying the barriers put in the way of this old kocker by digital culture in its various forms. “Time,” like Theophrastus says, “It is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” The older we get, especially after reaching the age of 70, for example, the more precious time seems. Not that I, for one, don’t spend whole days watching sports, the news, silly old movies on TV, and reading disjointedly, but at least I waste it in my own way.

In addition it changes, like the man said, plus it changesand the more things change, the less this grizzled old guy likes it. Status quo ante is his ideal, his utopia – an ideal, a utopia, he realizes, that he will never achieve in this life.

Joseph Epstein is the author, more recently, of Never say you had a lucky life And Familiarity breeds content: new and selected essays.

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