Unpacking Time and Ageism

Unpacking Time & Ageism:

Creating Alternative Pasts to the Future

What if one single image could contain all the experiences in this lifetime?

That’s what the James Webb Telescope captured in this historic picture of the first galaxies, when the universe was formed 13 million years ago¹.

As you process the magnitude of this discovery, take a moment to reflect on the individual/collective understanding of ‘age’ and ‘time’:

$Two views of the same object, the Southern Ring Nebula, are shown side by side. Both feature black backgrounds speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies. Both show the planetary nebula as a misshapen oval that is slightly angled from top left to bottom right. At left, the near-infrared image shows a bright white star with eight long diffraction spikes at the center. A large transparent teal oval surrounds the central star. Several red shells surround the teal oval, extending almost to the edges of the image. The red layers, which are wavy overall, look like they have very thin straight lines piercing through them. At right, the mid-infrared image shows two stars at the center very close to one another. The one at left is red, the one at right is light blue. The blue star has tiny diffraction spikes around it. A large translucent red oval surrounds the central stars. From the red oval, shells extend in a mix of colors.$

How old are you?

Finding out a person’s age is a window into the historical periods they’ve lived through. However, it’s important to ask more questions to learn more about their generational perspective, otherwise you might give in to age stereotypes.

What does aging mean to you?

Native American cultures and Indigenous Land across the globe both honor and encourage elders to pass down their wisdom and life experiences.

$A star field is speckled across the image. The stars are of many sizes. They range from small, faint points of light to larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved stars with 8-point diffraction spikes. The stars vary in color, the majority of which have a blue or orange hue. The upper-right portion of the image has wispy, translucent, cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula running along the bottom portion of the image. The cloudy formation shown across the bottom varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Many of the larger stars shine brightly along the edges of the nebula’s cloud-like structure.$

During the last year, how many meaningful conversations did you have with anyone 10, 20 or 40 years older/younger than you?

Did you learn about their dreams and worries?

Did you find any similarities or differences with yours?

How are age and time comparable on a macro scale?

Consider 100 years, the amount of time in a century, compared to one million years. Now consider a 20-year-old vs. an 80-year-old. With that context, how much different can they really be?

$Image of a group of five galaxies that appear close to each other in the sky: two in the middle, one toward the top, one to the upper left, and one toward the bottom. Four of the five appear to be touching. One is somewhat separated. In the image, the galaxies are large relative to the hundreds of much smaller (more distant) galaxies in the background. All five galaxies have bright white cores. Each has a slightly different size, shape, structure, and coloring. Scattered across the image, in front of the galaxies are number of foreground stars with diffraction spikes: bright white points, each with eight bright lines radiating out from the center.$

Do you see yourself as an ancestor for future generations?

Regardless of your choice to have children, seeing yourself as an ancestor makes you responsible for leaving a livable planet for everyone.

If you could select any point in time to take whatever climate action you wanted, what time period would you choose and why?

How would your action help in the fight against the climate crisis? Can you take this action today, too?

$Thousands of small galaxies appear across this view. Their colors vary. Some are shades of orange, while others are white. Most appear as fuzzy ovals, but a few have distinct spiral arms. In front of the galaxies are several foreground stars. Most appear blue, and the bright stars have diffraction spikes, forming an eight-pointed star shape. There are also many thin, long, orange arcs that curve around the center of the image.$

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¹ A cosmic time machine: how the James Webb Space Telescope lets us see the first galaxies in the universe

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