John said it well, “When they tortured and scared you for 20 odd years, then they expect you to pick a career when you can’t really function you’re so full of fear.” -John Lennon, Working Class Hero 1970
In my childhood, the coming-of-age group was the baby boomers. Their parents had come through the Great Depression, and the 2nd world War and then raised them in the post-war 1950’s. That generation augmented a way of life that set a bar that could never be erased from the collective consciousness. It is then ironic that the boomer generation would rebel against this perfect diorama that their parents constructed for them to live. Thanks to the weeds of Korea and Vietnam, success and blood seemed synonymous.
Rebellion or not, boomers did check into that 50s model in the late 70s and early 80s. It seemed inevitable. Little did they know, it was coming apart foundational. The dream was being sold, merged, migrated, and dissolved. The safe haven would be nothing more than running from one structure into another during a tornado.
We Generation X’ers had the unique perspective of believing that we were pursuing our grandparents’ lives while we were in grammar school, and our parents’ lives while we were in high school, but being taught that we would produce intangible goods. It seemed ludicrous.
It was during the 1980s that the greatest deception of all took place. It would victimize young people emerging into adulthood. Like a hard hammer strike to an anvil, a blow would be taken to their lives before they even walked out into the light of the workforce. No focus? Nothing to worry about. No direction? No problem. No desire? It doesn’t matter. Like terminal cancer, the poison idea that you had to go to college spread, sweeping young people up by the millions, destroying their lives forever, obliterating the chance that they will ever break free of the chains that bound them down.
Not all college is bad, just most of it. In the wake of brainwashing that college is needed and then a financial system that programs young brains the buy the lie that it is normal to take on predatory debt which can only be likened to the ultimate betrayal of someone you trust implicitly, at 55 years old the once young student works at a job they did not need the degree for. Broken and weary, they repeat the mantra, tomorrow, I will make it out of this. They said it at 25, 35, 45, you get the idea.
OK, I know this is a sore subject. We all have our things. Remember Sanda Bullock in Gravity when she was moving from one vessel to the next to the next to make it home? That is what my career path has been like! Much of it is my own fault. In 1987, between January 1st and December 31st, I worked 6 different full-time jobs. No overlap either! Mix wild days like this with an unhealthy appetite for alcohol and the ride is real. I suspect just as unsettling as knowing I might never pay off a college loan.
Generation X is about to turn 60 and nothing has changed. Y and Z are in shock and also working with a fraction of the facts. I want to scream from the rooftops the warnings they need to hear, but the fog is so thick that even the sound is saturated by it and my words fall to the ground. Yes, Leonard, there it is again. Man! That guy really knew his stuff!
As technology continues to take away the interaction that we have with each other, we are losing the very texture that gives us strength and confidence. Being an X-er, I have a very unique vantage point in which I can see five generations. There are things that Gen Z does not realize the advantage of. Information that they could have in their hands in three minutes, used to take us an entire year to gather. If they could only know what life is without being part of a collective of data-byte statistics, how amazing would that be?
The constant attack of pressure to buy, to borrow, to conform to competing with those around us is getting stronger all of the time. Like it or not, it is a matrix. I heard a great question the other day. “If no one else could see this item I feel the need to buy, would I still purchase it? I know the answer to this was almost scandalous to me.
There is no turning back on this road. I know what I know and that cannot be undone. All of the random particles spinning through the void really do mean something. I am happy to report this a mere 8 years later. It’s getting better all the time.