http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/weekinreview/09aoscott.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
They still dont get it or should I say US. The outside world or the Gen Xer that never went any deeper into our existence other than superficiality.
There is much to do in this world for the Gen Xer now. We are akin to silent Watchers. When we stop being afraid of the Boomers and those horrid Gen Y and Millenials that just went away in the last few years (whew) crowding us in between them- the Boomers being ever jealous of our youth and our being the only generation to recall what they were really like back in the 60's and 70's a reality that they want deeply buried in history under a white wash. And the Millenials messing with us like we were a threat to society in itself becuz we are loners for life yet strong in our connections to each other being so group and team obsessed as they are.
The Gen Xer is potenitally a very powerful Elder in society. But once again all the tricks and conditioning that the system did to keep us under control, keep us from acting out or understanding our full potential or its meaning in this time frame we are here on earth, has succeeded once again.
This article sucks lets be blunt. Slackers could be Sleepers. And not acting at a juncture where you are expected to act out may just be wisdom about lying in wait for your enemy until the right time. Hunters know this and Gen X learned very well from the 60's generation (of Pluto in Leo's) how to be fierce. We, wanting to be more peaceable than they, only do so when necessary.
Many Gen X'ers are not refusing to grow up but rather understand that society is still full of sh*t no matter how many Bush's you put in office to scare and intimidate everyone back under control again.
We are not any of the things they say, or even this Gen X simpleton/traitor who wrote this article. We are rebellious, just as our parents taught us to be, probably until our deaths.
We also had a name for this kind of Gen X'er who wrote this: Poser. Sell out. In fact, as I recall, we simply did not associate with THIS kind of kid when we were young, so by logic (Pluto in Virgo) this here Gen Xer doesnt think he should be representin an entire generation.
We did grow up during the 80's. When the preppy kids had thier world and we had ours and anyone in between had thiers. We werent forced into diversity or groups or teams. We had tribes. This kid is not from my tribe. He works at this newspaper and that is testament enough to where he is going and (as they used to say in the 70's) where he's 'comin from'.
I have to say that I like this Gen Z. They seem much less group minded however many of them are way to quiet. It creeps Gen X out sometimes. They are a nice change from the last two I mentioned. Of course I am generalizing.
What does this author mean by "generalizing a personal experience"? As in what?
This guy sounds like he is generalizing his personal experience, which is what Gen X does as he writes. Geez, it's like a box within a box or putting a mirror up to another mirror to see infinity. Is that too general? Am I slacking? Do I give a sh*t? Not really.
The only problem with cyber land is that you cant do really cool surrealist type remaking of or vandalism of things belonging to the establishment or mainstream already in existence like in zines.
You cant pull thier false created reality apart or satirize it if for one they have co opted everything that was underground and cool and number two you cant physically dismantle things anymore due to ads being on the sides of buses, across railroad tracks on train station walls, or on people's cars.
They named us Gen X due to some slur about us not existing or having no definitions. I think X is appropriate and I think our generations meaning scares the sh*t out of them. X for mystery, for silence, for knowing. X for seeing through the bullsh*t but not falling for it while doing everything that has to be done to live among it. All those therapists and all that 70's coddling and teaching peace not diversity and PC, all those recovery programs and that sh*t in the 70's that always included some alternative explaination refering to what would later be known as new age content- made us doubt ourselves, gave us a lack of substance, made us used to pondering but never settling on an answer but thats becuz the answer was never clear. We are comfortable to wait until it is and live through the mystery. Patience is our watch word. You try raising a Baby Boomer who is only 17 or 20 years your senior while they think they are raising you. It took alot of tolerance, love and patience we seem to be born with. And they still dont want our pure type of love, they want attention and adulation from whatever next gen will buy into whatever new remade image of themselves they create.
It will be forever a mystery as to what is inside of a Baby Boomer from the 60's. For all their honesty, for all there overtly facing the system and fighting it there is some part of them we never knew. Something so dark, so hurtful it helped spurn the entire 60's revolution. Under those flowers lies something dark, we grew up with this. We put them to bed, cleaned up after them and learned to fend for ourselves. We had parents to raise after all. We retain the darknes but do not fear it. We embraced it which is what is in alot of our music that everyone dubbed depressing and whiney.
In the 80's they took off from the discos in mercedes playing catch up and watching Dallas. They were probably as out of it with Reagan as we were with Bush...which is a very interesting 'coincidence' that wreaks of getting not just one generation under control but two. The Kids and their kids.
In general many people have and still are very biased and unfair towards Gen X. To be the children of a transition into technology from the totally analog world is quite a position to be in.. It does often feel like being Janus, with one face towards a past very different than the other face towards the future.
Society does not hate Gen X nor do those with eyes to see misunderstand us as they claim. They fear us and they know it. Not the ones who remain asleep like this author may genuinely be if he is not pretending to not understand as he writes is one of our ways of being.
Keeping us down or from understanding our place in this very important pivotal time of change for the whole world was I dare guess one of the greatest priorities of The System. Many are still asleep. Many have sold out or couldnt change thier fighting style to keep fighting the system as the whole set up has been re arranged.
There are many examples of Gen Xers who still insist on the system showing itself for what it is. When people are telling Naomi Klein to grow up its very suspect. It clearly tells us that the system finds people exposing it for what it is as somehow immature.
What they really mean is move on yer done now, yer not in yer 20's yer no longer a threat. You never were you were easy to subdue.
This is becuz many Gen Xers will find that rebellion or truly fighting the system is more appropriate now than it was during the Clinton years when everything was made to seem as if a new world was emerging that would be TRULY peaceful, TRULY evolved and TRULY improved not the lie the system is putting forth now with the NWO. We were naive in that we thought we had won, solidified our parents visions for a better world.
We were always leery however luckily. Remember the darkness, remember the lies. Remember the 70's and how close to death the whole era was, while glittering outfits and hot lights created the illusions that one big party was here to last forever. And everything was alright no matter what.
Gen X has a healthy mistrust of authority instilled in us by our parents.
We also saw living examples of this: Veitnam footage, junkies who wore dog tags out of drama and an urge to be survivors (a big thing then) of thier own self destruction, drugs used to control and medicate an unhappiness and depression so great from many adults of that era that it made a permanent imprint on our souls. Mafia and crooked cops running things business as usual, the cities beginning to rot from within and that was marketed as gritty America with a special charm, long lines at the gas pumps with flags which later we would find out was a scam. Reagan coming in and bringing us close to Doomsday and us deciding that we would always make a friend out of Death, and walk quietly beside him other than fear his presence, and then AIDS patients everywhere, dying before the meds came out. We had to see death not as brought on by the govt which we could fight but as an unstoppable part of reality, surrounding us, drowing us, taking those we loved and us having to live with it as if it were normal to exist that way.
How do you believe then, you will scare us with anything? We were seriously convinced (and secretly still are) that Mad Max was going to be our undeniable future. And we were ready.
You cant beat that but like this author you can mamby pamby over intellectualize it and explain it away. What I know about Gen Xers is that when something becomes explained away in a formula that looks a bit too mathematical and a bit too neat and tidy- we are hiding something we are either afraid of or that we dont want to look into the abyss for fear of dying or not existing at all. Of the death that exists for Vietnam soldiers, for dope fiends, for drunk driving and your head going through the windshield, for all the victims of mob hits or drug dealers doing clean ups, for victims of Jason from Friday the 13th (admit it, these movies f*cked you up) or Freddie, for kids left in ghettos in the 70's where you were told you wouldnt make it out alive. That feeling you get in the northeast riding in a car in the middle of the night looking at street lights go by and wondering why they remind you of death, of the emptiness or void spot in the middle of yer chest. That wondering if you are alive or dead, that comfort of living with death, walking beside him.
After the 80's we seemed to forget our scary traumatic beginnings and the 90's was a way to hide in something that either partially addressed it as expressing it as 'angst' or Sienfeld, Friends, Supermodels and dark brown lipstick and Ab Fab as a way out of it as if it were behind us.
Then the mid 90's came. The police state started to move in. We either didnt see it or thought that old monster was dead thanks to our parents. The one great mistake of Gen X is believing that our parents could fight the monster that was oppression for us forever. Secretly to many of us they were our heros or maybe we hadnt been up against this monster to appreciate thier actions so much as we do now. Bush came in. The monster returned and with nasty new paradinms, new tech, new lies and deceptions. People left the country thsi time instead of fighting. We were unprepared and the Boomers had lost alot of their fire by then. These men in this administration were the same as under Ford or around Nixon. There was a new way to pull off cover ups and this time they were leaving nothing to chance as before.
Then Obama came in and made alot of us ashamed to ever have believed in the Dem or the left or the Liberal in the USA. More deceptions more lies, more look alikes, stand ins, dopple gangers. Reality...solid reality, the kind we knew in our childhood has become something outdated. Passe.
We still fight, we still believe that there will be an end to this and the sun will come out returning everything to normal. If not then the Gen Xer will do what we have always done. We will stick to our solid beliefs, routines and Willfulness, mixed with our gentleness, sensitivity and tolerance....and of course patience and keep seeing hard reality when all around is deception. That is the definitive explaination of the 1970's. Its just that era of deceptions was fun, exciting and cheaper to live out. This one being oppressive and unpleasant and very sterile. Both insult the intelligence and strange aged wisdom of the individual and collective souls of Gen X. We quietly still do not accept your reality as honest. Gen X is still waiting for honesty from the system.
I believe that they thought a blitzgrieg of terrorism, fear, paranoia, intimidation and confusion/chaos would break us down and change us- modify us finally. Hey, welcome to the very definition of being a little kid in the 70's. We'll just adapt to yet another new school, another new president, another new interesting generation of young people that are of course hated and misunderstood by thier elders. When I was living near the border of Juarez in El Paso TX people were freaking out becuz it was dangerous. US Fed Marshalls were washing up in large drain pipes as nice messages from drug cartels to butt out. People forget that level of violence is exactly what the 70's in Boston or NYC was like. One just didnt talk about it or it was forgotten about as 'business' by criminals and yer best bet was to pretend you didnt know or see anything.
Humans have fun and live in war zones. People survive horrid circumstances and still retain thier humanness. All that has happened to Gen X is that the strength we didnt need to find within our Selves in the 90's has now been triggerd by the recent decade of bullshit by the same people that handed our parents so much bullshit in the 60's. We have learned simply that The Dragon may come back to life, he may come back in another more insidious form to attack or his brethren may return and that is eternal. We have learned to take our vision of a perfect world with us in our hearts on the road, to the next place, the next point of life whether it be 20 or 40 or 60, the next phase that The Man creates to keep us and that perfect peaceful world we want to unpack- on the run.
Gen X will only get older and acquire more power with age. You cant just write us off by ignoring us or pretending authors like this have us pegged with a few very shallow generalizations. How can you ask us to 'grow up' when you never really made sense of the world to begin with. We still think that grown ups and human beings in general are terribly silly, that the action of the world at the same old games is really passe and boring (see military industrial complex) and when are you going to let the natural evolution of Mankind happen world wide?
If anything, Gen X has been waiting (patiently of course) for YOU all to grow up.
