I'm one from the generation that stayed home. A failure to launch kind of life I've lived. You see, my generation, the Gen Yers who basically never gave a rat's ass, the Bush children, are now staying home in droves. They either drop out of college, or never go in the first place. They're estimated to live with their parents to almost forty years of age. The question I pose: can you be grounded at forty?
All joking aside, I see the trends, and they're horrible, absolutely dreadful, but not because of kids staying kids well into their autumn years, but because most kids don't want to go out and find a living. Those fee that do are doomed, because the job market has been terrible for nearly a decade. Supposedly this is a recovery, but I see stats that say different. A quarter of grad students still live with their parents, not even able to afford rent. Then again, in a market like this, it's probably cheaper to own a home, but without work, or credit, that's nearly impossible for most.
This generation is screwed, and I mean that in the most blatant way I can, and now they are burdened with such a huge insurmountable debt to society for the elderly and aging Baby Boomers, that I feel it would be best to scratch Social Security all-together. We'll never do it, because it would be a drastic move that would influx the economy in a boomerang, but we cannot take the teat of government dependency out of our spoiled mouths.
My generation would be well off if we were motivated to make money, but the socialist movement that were the radical 60s, and two whole generations raised on welfare have hurt the bustling pride for economic freedom. Granted, having everyone else pay for my life sounds great, but the reality is simple: the U.S. can't mother me from cradle to grave. Unfortunately for most people, this is what they expect out of life: to have the country raise them, and their generations to come, and in the end, everyone loses.
I understand times are tough, believe me I do, and I'm no better than most of my generation: I have no job, at the time an associates degree was all I would need to get an entry level job in my concentration, the market crash saw to end that. I have a ton of excuses, some legitimate, some because one grows cynical over time. So I know I'm not perfect, and I truly empathize with those who have it worst than I do, because I know it's been rough for everyone.
The fifties brought about the Beat Generation, a hipster liberal, freedom loving generation that was very work orientated, but sick of the cronyism that followed the post war era of news, politics, and society.
I like the term: the Defeated Generation, the majority that is passive, inconclusive, and always blaming someone else, as a title for the current Gen Yers and Millennials.
We have become a nation of Who Cares? Those people who sit around in apathetic self loathing, which never helps to fix the problems that arise constantly from the powers that be.
I do blame a lot of the problems today on the elderly, and the Baby Boomers. They have expanded government, and depleted the global economy to the point of being hysterical, like some sick joke. So I know that partial blame can be placed on prior generations for the lack of economic stimulation.
However, we cannot keep blaming the present on the past, because there comes a time when we have to take over, and make the future brighter, which I do not know is certainly going to happen with this current mindset. We don't know if we've weathered the storm, or that utter chaos is just one bad news report away.
The current generation is all flare and no gas. I would hope that we'd learn to be more innovated, especially in a time with such simplicity, where practically all knowledge is at our fingertips. To paraphrase a joke: our bombs, phones, and glasses are smarter than most people. Now, I'm not arrogant, there are plenty of learned people out there, who are both wise, and coherent, those who read books, study and question, and who make the rest of us look like nincompoops, they are smart, notwithstanding the cynicism that arises whenever those wonderful education debated roll along. Intelligence and education are not always synonymous, therefore not everyone from this generation is stupid.
I love the idea that we are all part of this grand generation that has more access to information than the Age of Enlightenment, or even the time of the Library of Alexandria. We have instantaneous knowledge, and I'm sure it will take a generation or two to adapt to this new learning style, but I believe once phones (or micro computer equivalents) are allowed on tests, we will see the end of the studying process as we know it today. We will be Google studying more and more, until it becomes the norm. I do like how most people have disbanded the use of online encyclopedias, even for their footnotes, and take to legitimate studying.
So with all these college grads coming back home, the economy not jump starting any time soon, and the debt of this generation that needs to be paid, is it possible for a forty year-old to be grounded? I'm making an inconsiderate joke to be honest, but the fact remains when the young want to remain young forever, or hold a grudge for growing old, then the fact is they are adult children that never expand past a precise point in their development.
A great example is the essence of nostalgia. Now, I love my childhood like anyone who grew up in a fairly consistent household that allowed for the imagination to grow, and so I recall so many original ideas that I saw when I was young, a d implement them today in my own work. Nostalgia is our hold on history, forcing us to believe things were always better when we were younger, because the world is always more personal when you're young. Everyone gathers around you, gives you birthdays and showers you with gifts and love, they treat you with admiration, because to the adult, the future is bleak, off-putting, something they want hindered. In the child; they see nothing but potential, the sort that garners a respect that carries a bit of envy, but also a nurturing nature, compelling us to model our own childhoods to cater to the youth. We still want them to be like us, but the nostalgia dream ends when you realize the world has moved on from whence it was, and the past we loved will never truly be passed onto the next generation.
Nostalgia is good, and it fulcrums our brains in place, never allowing us to forget where we were, and who we were with, because it is not just a memory, it is a patch of our soul. I say it's good to keep that, but not keep it so close it stifles you from growing strong into a new, wiser person. It seems complications arrive more from the lack of responsibility than it does the love of childhood things, which apparently grow to outlast the idea of childhood toys. Everything from Lego blocks, to video game systems, to collectible action figures and comics, have replaced the model train, or race tracks of the past in childhood toys that have crossed over to adults. Video games especially have become a global phenomena, and although they may be seen as time wasters, they are no worst than watching a movie, or even reading a mindless magazine. The point I make is that this generation that stayed home, is not failing because of entertainment choices, nor because they have a knack to admire outdated references, or nostalgic childhood memories. They fail, and I include myself in that failure, because this generation lacks the forced need to spend hours crunching numbers, illustrating and designing plans through tedious trial and error, where control S saves us all the hassle of starting from scratch. We do work hard, but it's more about working within the confines of heavy stress, not mental capacity. Where technology was the barricade decades before, people have become the impossible obstacles to over overcome adversity. We can work, we can even accomplish more than previous generations, we just want the nineties capital to do it with, because the economy today makes it a scary play for innovation to excel.
So is this generation the worst? The greatest? Or a mystery that spouts from the outcome of two polarizing generations to come before it? I'd like to believe we're better than what the media bias call us: lazy, incompetent, freedom-hating elitists, and whatever else they spit out of their hate machine of fallacies to portray us in such a negative light. However, there is always a grain of truth in every exaggeration, or else people's feelings would never be hurt.
So I say to you, good reader, this generation is not a showcase of outliers with no true potential, because this Defeated Generation is chock full of potential, but because of introverted societal behavior, we're seen as nothing more than typists that are addicted to our computers, and our networking obsessions. This is true, to an extent, but never does it come to fruition the fact that we were always a society of introverts, with a few extroverts that voiced themselves loud enough than their counterparts.
We never gossiped like heckling old biddies outside coffee shops in the 20's and 30's, our faces were normally nose deep in newspapers, or books. Or even at home, we were entranced by a radio program to cede the pains of human conversation. Those who view nostalgia like most do, have done it so through the ever-popular rose-colored glasses.
In retrospect, society hasn't changed all that greatly in the last century, we just found new, exciting ways to avoid the people in front of us, and connect with the exotic that is the media, and how it glorifies everything new and shiny. This generation is the largest living in the world's history, with more generation gaps still living together today than in any time prior. They are also all connected by a common technology that is the Internet. I don't fear for this generation that stayed home, but I do hope they stop blaming past mistakes for the current crises that haunt them today. In the end, we all have challenges to meet, and we'll do the our own way. The older generations will not understand us, and we will have the same problem when we're up in age. Yet, we'll learn to change everything we do wrong, and learn faster, build stronger, and graph a new outline in the world, so our children, and their children will not suffer the same maladies, so they can solved the deeper meanings to some of our greatest questions. I'm not saying this generation is better, nor am I disagreeing with the questioning of past generations about this one. I instead say this: no matter the situation, no matter the reasoning, all generations have their best and worst moments, and hopefully my generation's worst moments are coming to an end.
Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial.
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