It’s been a heavy week. I’m tired, my back’s sore, the world has managed to reach yet another new level of absurdity and it has left me feeling like I don’t have anything deep or profound to say this time around.
Which is unfortunately very familiar territory.
This year marks 30 years since my high school graduation. The retro music pages are full of songs from my senior year, but hearing them has me more morose than nostalgic.
Bc what the bleep y’all?
Gen X was, and maybe still is, such an angry generation.
But what did we do with it all?
All the screaming, all the rage, all the grit and the grunge and the social rebellion.
Where did it all go?
We pushed, the world pushed back, and we soon found out we were outnumbered, outvoted, outspent, stuck playing a rigged game we couldn’t quit, and out of options.
So the anger turned inward, smoldering like a coal seam fire miles underground, looking fine on the surface while burning anyone who got too close.
We became one of the most self destructive generations of modern history. So many of our brightest and most brilliant burned themselves out while the rest turned apathy into an art form.
I suppose it made some kind of sense. The only thing on our side was time, so we thought if we just waited it out, things would eventually change.
Only now it’s 30 years later and we’re still waiting.
A few things have improved, others have not, and some, a very alarming number actually, have suddenly gotten so much worse.
We thought if we refused to play the game the stadium would collapse and we would all be free.
But what we’re playing is more like the Hunger Games than the Rose Bowl and despite our resistance, we still got dragged into the arena kicking and screaming.
And hiding didn’t help, well not really. We may have eked out our survival, but the games go on and the aggressors still roam the field, picking us off one by one.
Doing nothing got us nowhere, but the other side pushed on and now we have been pushed all the way back to our own ten yard line. (did I get that metaphor right? I don’t do the sports ball thing.)
Not caring is no longer an option. Either we step up and play, or we walk away and forfeit.
And if there is one thing Gen X won’t do, it’s quit.
So game on, Joyfriends. Grab the nearest Gen Z or Millennial and suit up.
It’s time to take the world back.
Image Credit:
The Burning of Rome
J.M.W Turner
Gouache, Pencil and Watercolor on Paper
1834-35
Courtesy of the Tate Museum via Wikimedia Commons