PERENNIALS a New Year

 THIS POPPED UP AND GIVEN THAT IT’S THE START OF A NEW YEAR, THIS SEEMED PARTICULARLY APROPOS…. for those of you who actually READ .. here is something to marinate on especially if you are part of the fashion machine where age is a detriment...

Merriam Webster defines perennial as:

Present at all seasons of the year

Persistent & enduring

Continuing without interruption

Regularly repeated or renewed

I would like everyone to sit back and marinate on the fact that there are those human beings who would be considered perennials …. Not boomers, not millennials and not Gen X, Y, or Z! We are the ones who never totally disappear and are constantly evolving and morphing within our chosen area of creativity, expertise or profession in general.

My dear friend Marpessa used the term Perennial as a noun describing many of us who have been around for decades and while we may seem to fade away for short periods of time, we continue to come back bigger, stronger, with a louder voice and a reinvention within our particular skillsets.

The reason or the ability to qualify for such a moniker is that we possess talent, credibility, experience, wisdom and humility which allows us to be someone new when we need to be. There has never been a job/career in my life that was directly related to what I studied or what I previously did as a job. The mystery is really how did all these diverse positions put another feather in my cap or allow to me wear another hat with great authority, success and confidence.

In a time when it is more common to age out of a profession or career, it is we as perennials who keep reappearing and attracting new audiences of those who may never have known us in our previous or original incarnations. Contemporary generations seem to think they are the smartest, the greatest and just about the mostest when it comes to knowledge on any particular subject … well, in particular, fashion in this instance especially when an iPhone and a keyboard are in their possession.

The crux is that the vast majority have no knowledge of the past, no desire to learn about the past and believe that everything only exists in the present tense. It’s rather sad to watch and listen to young people judge and rate their lives and yours by how many “likes” or “followers” they/you may have on Instagram….

This does not make you an authority on any subject nor does it give you any credibility in the real world. The internet is the double-edged sword that has created an alternate universe of uninformed and inexperienced people who have a voice and a keyboard yet lack the experience and real-life grit to back that up.

I eagerly wait for the time when people want to know what came before them since it is quite true that history does repeat itself. They should know that even though in their eyes ”we” have aged out due to their mindset, they should rest assured that is we perennials who will be forging new paths and new ways to question what we know and how we learned it and not beating our chests over the absurdity of likes and followers.

It is true talent and resourcefulness that will endure long after so many fleeting moments and while our names may not be on the tip of everyone’s tongues we endure, we evolve, we persist, we teach and we remain! Life is not about how much you may possess but much more about the knowledge you have bankrolled and how you spend it throughout your life.

Hopefully, each of us will or already have inspired someone of another generation and given them the energy that we still possess as perennials!