Dr. M. C. Gupta's Journal

DOES THE WORLD BELONG TO THE YOUNG?

DOES THE WORLD BELONG TO THE YOUNG?


[Is this statement true?]








Sometime ago I wrote the sonnet MAKING WAY FOR THE YOUNG: a sonnet—"MAKING WAY FOR THE YOUNG: a sonnet" . A reader while reviewing it and rating it 5 stars, sent the following query: “Do you believe this to be true? You said: The world belongs to those who’re young, not old."





This set me thinking how to prove this in objective, not subjective terms, especially because the writer himself was a person grown in years who had practiced as an advocate in USA for a long time. That the world belongs to the young is an oft-made statement and we keep on repeating it without much thought. The fact that a senior person, who was a lawyer, questioned me on this made me look for an answer in irrefutable terms (those are the only terms that make sense to a lawyer. I know it, because I am one!)





The reply that I sent him is given below for wider sharing since I think it will be of general interest.





***





I think this is axiomatic. There should be no need to prove that the world belongs to the young. Let us look at it in this way:








I am 67. If I live till 80, the world "belongs to me" only for 13 years more. (As a matter of fact, the average life span in India is 64 years at present. We are presuming here that I would live 16 years beyond the average life span and are giving him a plus factor of 16).





Now, take the case of a child who is 13 years old today. By the time he is 67 years old, the average life span in India can be reasonably expected to have touched 74 years, in the same league as Japan and USA today. Adding to it the plus factor of 16, if he lives till 90, the world "belongs to him" for 77 years more!





So, it is clear that while the world may belong to a 67 years  old man for 13 years, it may belong to a 13 years  old boy for next 77 years.





In conclusion, not only I believe the statement to be true but I know it to be true.





*******





The above was a response from an old person. Now, let us see how a young person may respond to the same question.





I posed this question to a young man, an Indian, who qualified as an engineer here, got his Master’s in USA, and is expected to get his PhD degree there after about 7-8 months. He is deeply into statistics.





His response: “The world in my opinion belongs to those who think big and resolve to implement their thinking in the form of concrete actions. I believe the ability to think big and to implement the thought process into actions maybe age-dependent to a certain extent. In such a context, it might be fair to say that the world does belong to the younger lot. A lot about implementation of ideas depends on energy. There is evidence to suggest that human energy decreases as age increases”.








M C Gupta 


26 May 2009