When I was six, I appeared on a legendary local TV show in Montreal called The Magic Tom Show. Every day, the suave and beloved Tom Auburn performed for a group of kids, some of whom were lucky enough to be asked to sing a song in front of the live audience in studio and at home.
Most kids picked sang "Old MacDonald" or "Frère Jacques" or something else of the standard kindergarten repertoire; I sang the #1 hit of the week, "I'm Henry The Eighth I Am" by Herman's Hermits, one of the major British Invasion bands of the '60s. My performance was unprecedented and memorable to say the least, because to his dying day, Tom (who became a mentor and a friend) always told me that no other kid ever chose to sing a rock song.
A few years later, earlier this month to be more precise, I realized a companion, dream-come-true, bookending moment to the story by once again singing this song in public. This time, I did it onstage alongside Peter Noone -- Herman himself! The lead singer of the Hermits! -- at a fundraising concert.
Cut to last Thursday, when I tell this story to a friend of mine. He smiled when I finished, but looked at me somewhat bewildered. "I'm sorry and I don't want to disappoint you," he said, "but Magic Tom, Peter Noone and Herman's Hermits are all well before my time."
No reason to be sorry, and no disappointment on my part, I told him. (Not his fault he was born too late...)
Nonetheless, his words did rattle around my head for a few days. And the more I thought about it, I realized,
There is no shame in not knowing what went on "before one's time."
(The philosopher George Santayana once famously said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Given the storage power of the Internet, perhaps it is more apropos to say "Those who cannot remember the past simply have to Google it.")
But, and this is a big BUT, what I do find a little shameful, somewhat sad to be frank, is not knowing what's going on "during one's time," i.e. now.
Worse yet is not being curious about what will be going to go on "after one's time," namely the future, immediate or distant.
I don't want to call it an "epidemic of ignorance," nor am I the world's most enlightened human being, but I do find that people's level of awareness of "what's going on" to be in desperate need of elevation.
There's no excuse, as people have so much access to so much information so incredibly rapidly and conveniently that the crippling disease of "unawareness," like Polio, should be nearly eradicated.
Perhaps this is more a symptom of there being so much -- dare I suggest too much? -- information out there that many get overwhelmed by it. In fact, if you examine the individuals who make up my social circle, on the average, they are relatively well informed. Problem is, said average is skewed and brought up by a lot of people I know who are obsessively hyper-informed. Being amongst them is akin to taking a course in the relevant.
So how does this translate into this week's learning?
Well, this week's learning is about learning. About learning about today, and tomorrow. About being more informed, and ultimately more interesting. And not just to be better guests at Christmas and/or New Year's parties; to be better, period.
Check your watch. It's your time right now (at least it's after Noon...).
Be part of it.