Wise answers come from clever questions and boomers remind that the answer is in the windBob Dylan sang the song and the generation accompanied him humming the lyrics. Was long ago. Since then, the wind has blown and many of its icons have flown like the leaves of a tree in autumn.

As the boomers are entering in their own sixties and seventies decades, they discover that time is short and this can be the famous answer in the wind, something that Roman philosophers had discovered two thousand years ago leaving to us phrases like Tempus Fugit, Carpe Diem or Memento Mori that we can translate into English like “Time flies”, “Live the moment” or literally “remember (that you have) to die”.

Maybe the ability to connect the wise answer with the clever question is consciousness, but doing that is an art that one must practice from a young age[1]. First learning to be healthy and then developing the skill of keeping active.

The acquisition of knowledge and the development of the skills that make us competent to live a full life is a parallel process to ageing. Time makes us mature and hopefully makes us wiser. All societies have respected their elders, not only for their memory but also for their knowledge. However, our current society is capable of squandering the treasure of the elderly by excluding them from active life and preventing the transmission of experience.

MyMate provides a bridge so that younger generations can connect with older ones. The idea of mobilizing seniors in good condition to offer services to older people provides a model of value creation because it facilitates the intergenerational relationship.

The members of the same generation are coetáneos (Spanish word for same age), however, people of different ages and belonging to different generations, are contemporáneos (Spanish word for people coexisting in the same time). Both Spanish words are translated into English as contemporaries loosing in that way the nuance that allowed the philosopher Ortega and Gasset to build his Theory of Generations[2].

Connecting people of different generations is a must. Each generation brings its own weltanschauung. Each Époque has its zeitgeist. Providing a channel for care and communication it is the core of MyMate.

[1] Liz Mestheneos: “Grow well, not just old”. TEDxThessoloniki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXihH0sNZQ8
[2] Marias, Julian Aguilera: “Generations: A Historical Method”. Harold D. Raley, trans. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, Eng. Tr. 1 970. (c) 1949, 1 967