Welcome to the weekend!
I hope you've been having a good one. The weather is finally turning around, at least where I am. But enough about that. Let us get to today's topic.
This week I wanted to talk a bit more about the inevitable death of the 20th century and the legacy of the Baby Boomers. Instead of going over the usual points, I wanted to focus on what exactly is being left behind as they pass on. Turns out it won't be much.
It's no secret that as time passes, those of us who are a bit older, the ones who remember the Greatest Generation, as they were called, have noticed a clear difference between them and their children in regards to how they have aged. It's unavoidable, an elephant in the room that they are vastly different creatures, at the end of the day. In fact, it is almost night and day seeing how different the two are. Did they come from different planets?
Yes, obviously, but we already knew that.
When the Greats died, they did so confident in the fact that they did what they could in life (good or bad) and rightfully understood that their time was up and it was their children's turn for being in control and picking up the slack they were leaving behind. So how it always is, and has been through all of human history before this point. They grew old, accepted their time was near, and went into the deep night like we all eventually will, making sure to pass on their work when they were still cognoscente and used their final years to reflect and stand on the sidelines.
The Baby Boomers, however, are a very different story. As a generation, they have done none of this. Almost all political protests are attended by grey hair boomers. Almost all remaining watchers of TV (and news channels especially) are all Baby Boomers. The ones out in public proclaiming the death of all that is good and decent unless we repent of our 20th century sacrilege in ignoring said failed century, are all old people. They still think it's their goal to revolutionize the world. What this is all saying is that the boomers are not acting their age, and they are terrified of doing so. They are not capable of making that last move of acceptance. It's still the Me Generation, to the bitter end.
And boy howdy, what an end it has been! Politicians defecating themselves on stage, Alzheimer's patients being shuffled around to give speeches as if this were serious business, and crusty entertainers posing and pouting like they're still a fresh-faced twentysomething rebel. For something really embarrassing, look up videos of Madonna's recent performances. If that isn't the most embarrassing thing you've ever seen I would be surprised.
What all this is saying, is that it's over, and none of them want to accept it. They don't want to accept it because they have no mind for anything else. All they can do is play pretend at being their version of you. "80 is the new 30" is, unfortunately, not a slogan getting much use. Those old movies and TV shows of grandpa trying to be hip and relevant have nothing on what those "hip" kids from back then have aged into. It's just sad at this point.
But this is all they have. They never strove for anything else.
As the most materialistic generation of all time (and there is some steady competition!) they do not believe in legacy, hope, grace, or anything that isn't cold hard cash or property. They never grew out of the world as a toybox stage the TV taught them way back when it was still relevant. As a consequence, the thing they are most terrified of is not being the one dying with the most toys. They are running out the clock by tightening their geriatric grip on the control levers they were gifted nearly half a century ago, to prevent the 20th century from ending. They do this because they know as soon as they do let go (regardless of the age demo, religious beliefs, or political affiliation of the ones under them) everything they fought so hard to do will be undone overnight. Everyone knows it, and it is their worst nightmare to be forgotten.
Baby Boomers can't bear being alive to see that inevitability. Therefore they will hold fast to the failed ideas and structures of the previous failed century and force it in place, even as their dying corpses are dragged into the clockwork to jam it up to prevent anyone from even attempting to fix it. They'll be dead by then, their toys securely with them (or so they seem tot think) and damn whatever comes next. That is their highest aspiration as a generation.
The above video is a good example of that mentality. the other younger generations might blame each other for stuck culture and the inability to create something new, but the problem is how deliberately jammed all the machinery is right now, and things won't change until it is fixed. We're all still dealing with ghosts of a past that some of us alive today weren't even alive to see. It goes without saying, they will be gone sooner than later. No one will be around to do otherwise. That's just how the passage of time works.
The good and bad news, is that it won't be that way forever, and we are destined to move on in as little as a couple of decades from now. This is unavoidable. The question is--will we be prepared when this shift finally happens? And when it does occur, how will we be able to move on from the dead era that is long since passed? What vision of the future will we have untied from the failure of the previous century? We're going to have to ask ourselves hard questions and accept some truths we were told to avoid. It will not be easy. Prepare accordingly!
That's all for this week, folks. I hope you've picked up the Rock and Roll Mercenaries anthology, and if you didn't know, I also recently finished the Psycho Mission serial on the Patreon. I also put out another episode of the podcast, this one on endings. There is no shortage of fun to be had over there, if you want it! There's still more to come after this, so hold on tight.
Summer's almost here! It's gonna be great.
It is indeed undeniable at this point that the sun is setting on the Boomers. And despite all the effort put into spurring their repentance, like some generational LARP of A Christmas Carol, the Me Generation seems to have their will set on doing as much damage as possible on their way out.
ReplyDeleteSo be it. Repairs will be the work of decades, as you said. But the work will proceed unfettered.