“The kind of people I used to think liked me seem not to like me anymore” drives a certain number of late-middle-aged pundits out of their gourds. This is why aging gracefully as a commentator, especially one with the luxury to do so, increasingly means sharing the space you have with others.

Heard a story about Pete Townsend and John Enthwhistle from The Who. It's the 1980s and rap music is exploding. John dismissively calls it rubbish. Pete argues with him until John finally says, "Look, I just don't get it!" Pete replies, "our job is not to 'get it.' Our job is to get out of the way."

It is in fact quite natural for 19-year-olds not to look to the same people their parents admired as 19-year-olds, *even if* you assume the message is roughly the same. (It usually isn’t.) You will make way for the next cohort whether you like it or not, which doesn’t mean you will disappear.

An awful lot of pundits would do themselves (and the rest of us a favour) if they had a certain number of times built into their contract where they could call their editor and say, "Fire up the understudy, I've got absolutely nothing to say any rational person would want to hear."

Nicely stated. I’m in my late 50s, and I’m disappointed by how many of my Gen X peers have forgotten what it’s like to bang your head against a wall while your elders misconstrue your words, your positions being dismissed out of hand as “of course you would think that way,” etc.

Yeah - and like, then it splits into two related ego problems (a) the kind of people who used to like you still do, they're just also middle-aged, and (b) they don't value the approval of peers or elders as much as youths.