I see that once again I've missed the annual and remarkably white Buddhist Geeks Conference. Arun at Angry Asian Buddhist also has published his annual "where are the Asians?" post. We don't seem to be getting anywhere.
I confess I have a couple of other reactions to the Geeks' speakers' photo roster that Arun published. This is probably going to get me into trouble, but I'm going to say it anyway. One, who are these people? I believe I recognize Ken Macleod, who has been around for awhile, but most of these folks are a mystery to me.
Two -- some of them are so, well, young. Certainly people who are younger than I am -- which are most people these days -- can be intelligent and articulate. But to me, some of the folks in the photo don't look old enough to be interesting yet.
By "interesting" I mean something like "originally insightful," which rarely happens until after you've been knocked around enough to realize that life will never be the way you think it's supposed to be. It also happens when you realize that everything you will ever know is only a speck of dust compared to the vast universe of stuff that's knowable. And you're okay with that.
In the relatively comfortable West, it's extremely rare to find a genuinely interesting person under the age of 40. Of course, many people live to a ripe old age without ever being interesting.
I was fortunate that nobody took me seriously about anything until I was well into my 50s (and, frankly, anyone with sense probably wouldn't take me seriously now). If you become too much of an expert too early, you are publicly married to your half-baked, youthful opinions, which makes it harder to let them go and become interesting.
There's a lot to be said for being allowed to ripen in anonymity. You can work through your layers of conditioning and BS without being called upon to explain why you've changed your mind multiple times about this or that.
This is not to say that young people shouldn't be listened to. The challenges they face are somewhat different than the ones I faced at their age. Or, at least, I believe so. It's getting hard to remember. I have realized that anything I have to say to young folks about either sex or careers is way outdated, and on those topics especially I keep my mouth shut and just listen. And then I wish them well. There's not much else I can do.
But when we're dealing with the future of Buddhism in the West -- well, I think the older you get, the more you realize there should not be a Grand Plan, or a committee in charge. Just let it be what it's going to be. Of course, it's hard to build a conference around that.
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