Petrified Dump: Circa 2006

Baby Boomers Ask Generation WhY?

The Baby Boomers saved the world. Remember? I forget the exact date, but it happened. It’s in the history books somewhere in between Columbus discovering America and our first George Bush winning the War on Drugs.

Back in the 60s and 70s everyone between the age of 12 and 29 was a radical hippy. Growing your hair long was better than diplomacy. It showed that you really cared. It was activism! And everyone’s hair was long – even the bald. Then one day they all got married and decided to have kids. The love and lust of this generation spawned me and my generation. The consensus was that we would all be super humans. Nothing could stop us from creating Utopia, not even infancy.

Unfortunately revolution is found in a recessive gene that skips a generation or something. Anyway, science and doing stuff is not a field in which my generation excels. Apathy, beer bongs, sitting, Tara Reid, and spending money, now these are things that we are good at. Give us some free time and we’ll waste it.

I wish history was this straight forward. But if the counterculture of the 60s was as ubiquitous as this crude painting would have it George W. Bush, class of ‘68, would not be our President today. Or maybe he would, but pot would be legalized, guns outlawed, and Dick Cheney would be Wavy Gravy or gay.

Instead we are here, discussing why my generation can’t pick up the slack and make equality an actuality. I’ve spliced together a lesson in history and science for all you fledgling polymaths out there: Youth is youth, no matter what the hour hand says on your clock. The chaotic clash of hormones, authority, and life make the cause the same chemical reaction each time a generation gets spit through the initial aging gauntlet. There may seem to be phase change every other generation. But just as ice is water, the youth still swim in their angst driven bodies wanting to screw everything – negatively, positively, and indecisively – they meet. Other than this the youth doesn’t really share a collective thought or purpose.

My generation might come off as somewhat temperate to the youth of yesteryear. But you are our parents, grandparents and impotent uncles. We’re a product of you and the world that you created. How do you blame the sum of your parts? Do you want us to save the world that you gave up on so long ago? Why is it that the youth is supposed to carry the torch when the aged decides to throw in the towel and have kids?[1]

It’s only when baby-boomers are staring at the wall of their cubicles in a fit of nostalgia, wishing they were still in college, marching on Washington, or occupying an administration building that fault is found in my generation. Maybe they just wish they hadn’t sold out.[2] As I see it, my generation has seen its mentoring generations fall early in bursts of futile flames and this may have taught us a lesson. We understand if we’re going to make it the long haul we have to do this dance with an eye on our pace. Granted, I have watched a lot of TV so my worldview may be deluded.

But the youth as a whole has nothing to say. I did an exit poll. Zeitgeists are bullshit. They are advertising for failure – a fleeting notion that the media uses to synopsize everything whirling about the world. I’m glad my generation is viewed as thinking nothing specific. This confuses the shit out of everyone – even us. But it gives us time to figure out our own individual path instead of trying to field questions of why we aren’t this and why we aren’t that. The answer is already out there: there is no united voice.[3] There never has been. People my age are everything – democrats, republicans, activists, metal-heads, born-agains, librarians.... Our thoughts and actions resist an encompassing definition. So why not call us lazy? It’s an easy description – a symptom of youth. Thinking about sex all day is exhausting. It’s nearly impossible to stand on two feet let alone save the world. Sorry.

Even though our generation carries a universal blank stare we are not oblivious. We’re an army of confused hard-ons. We see Iraq. We see the Sudan. We see New Orleans. We see the ills of world. And we have no idea what to do about them. Some kids don’t care. They’re moved to inaction by extreme personal comfort.[4] But others of us are moved to inaction by the burden of wanting to “save the world” with the conflicting knowledge that we don’t have the means.

This isn’t a cop out. What are we suppose to do? Reenact the 60’s like it was Appomattox? Massive marches on Washington don’t work anymore – the novelty wore off long ago. Johnson and Nixon might have feared a sea of odd kids hanging out on their lawn, but the people who now hold the power laugh. Bush’s administration is populated largely by the baby-boomers who hated their hippy peers. They are kids you never heard about, the squares, the ones that went to class and liked Nixon because he was a crook. They learned long ago that millions of marching liberals just smells funky.

We need something new. But what?

I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that these days that I can’t read the newspaper because the word on the world is splattered with bloody idiocy and greed. I can barely pay my bills and the fact that I am not saving the world is the only thing I can think about. I’m paralyzed by this. I’m 23 and feel utterly powerless. If anything, this is what drives my generation: the terror of being lost in a world that needs so much help. This is the frightening truth. The smart young activists are locked in their heads searching for a solution because change doesn’t come by through email and the old roads are closed.

I am disappointed. Am I disappointed in my generation for not saving the world in our first 25 years? No. I am scared that no one can. The fact that activism and trying to affect change for the greater good is now thought of as a stepping stone between puberty and a mid-life crisis is what kills me. Because it would be nice to have a mentor.

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[1] This burden will break the back of any generation. Atlas must be thought of as an allegorical figure representing the world community – not just the youth – lifting itself up.

[2] John Kerry, Rolling Stones, and all the rest of you rebellious kids that grew up, found millions of dollars and spent it on 14 BMWs, instead of using your power to affect change.

[3] What do the people that espoused peace, love and happiness have to say for themselves now that they control the world? Do you all have zeitgeist for your middle age?

[4] This is not an age specific symptom.