Golden moments

Netnet Camomot .

ONCE upon a time, there was “The Golden Girls.” Now, there’s “Grace and Frankie.”

Both TV series deal with senior-moment women whose afflictions are, well, senior, with “Golden Girls” for my mother’s generation, and “Grace and Frankie” for, hmmm, me and my batch mates?

Operative word: senior.

Meanwhile, millennials don’t have senior-citizen discounts but that doesn’t matter as the whole world is at their feet, begging for their wisdom since they’re the future, the hope, and the treasured assets of the country.

Who helps the senior tinker with gadgets? Definitely not another senior who’s also duh when it comes to the latest in technology, you know, the kind that panics when the monitor goes blank—oh, that was me way back in the early 21st century, when I was not even a senior citizen yet. Hey, I’m not a senior citizen as of today, so, what’s my excuse for the duhness?

There we were on Monday night, with at least two of us yawning as the clock neared 12 midnight. This is the group that used to morning the night only a few years ago but last Monday, we had chamomile tea after dinner. My eyes were craving for macchiato, but the nerves simply could not withstand caffeine and needed some help in the sleep department.

Praying the Rosary and reading the Bible are also sleep-inducing techniques that one can resort to when the love of his life is not, ahem, available for some, ahem, action between the sheets. Although for the senior, that kind of action can be too much for his health.

There was a time when drinking the night away could also induce sleep but as the senior ages and with his doctors always reminding him to be sober, he has no other choice but to sip some tea.

The senior you’re dealing with now as his moods switch from bliss to crass was not that way in his younger years. He was fun and the life of the party, the first one to dive into a bathtub filled with ice and drinks, and willing to man the bar when the hired bartender was too wasted to care.

Yup, he was young once. But the millennial now treats him like an antique better displayed in a museum for everyone to ooh and aah over. When he shares snippets of wisdom, that doesn’t stop today’s younger ones from staring down at their phones as if life’s lessons can only be gathered now from memes.

So, the senior shuts up with at least one raised eyebrow, with his thought bubble waiting to burst later with, I told you so!, once his warnings have been proven to be true after all.

The senior rarely ends up as the boy who cried wolf. By the time he has gathered enough wisdom tooth, er, thoughts, he has also learned when to share that wisdom and to whom. He doesn’t say anything for the sake of saying something. If he heaves a deep sigh, it’s not always of relief. It could simply be, Juice colored these young pehpohl.

But with most information now available through Google, who has the time to listen to the senior?

At least the young ones are still listening to taipans whose conglomerates do justify that those businesses didn’t sprout out of nowhere. These taipans have always emphasized the importance of hard work, perseverance, and commitment. But there are other secrets which they may not share, to make the potential taipan learn those secrets through his own experiences. Teaching, after all, should not be through spoon-feeding. There should be thrills and surprises along the way. Thrills and surprises that may discourage the young budding taipan to back out and hibernate in Siberia.

Future generations of these taipans have learned to expand their families’ businesses and they’re now occupying the upper one percent—or one-tenth of one percent?—of the country’s economic hierarchy. The taipans were there first and therefore were able to take advantage of the perks offered by each of the country’s presidents after World War II. There’s this saying about opportunity plus preparation equals success. Preparation can mean education which is through school and experiences, while opportunity keeps knocking until you open the door.

Any business owner can have sleepless nights thinking of what opportunities to grab and what to ignore. But I think the best ones are those that feel light, easy to digest, able to flow smoothly into his waiting arms. Yes, like love.

“Grace and Frankie” is also about love. Love for family, love among friends, and same-sex love, with the now ex-husbands of Grace and Frankie ending up with each other. Ooh la la! Welcome to love circa 21st century.