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My generation sucks! | page 1, 2
It's senseless to waste five minutes thinking up a clever term for a generation as insipid as my own. But here's one that took five seconds: Generation Sucks. How we got to be so sucky is a matter for history and science to decide. My own theory is that we were ruined by the '70s. It was in the '70s that we first became aware of the world outside our backyards, and what a dreary world it was. Watergate backwash. Recession. Gas lines. Jimmy Carter. Hostages in Iran. The Bee Gees. The impact of all of this on our young selves was crippling. By the time we made it into the placid '80s, we were just happy to be alive. My point: It's not really our fault that we turned out this way. Generations don't make history; history makes generations. The fact that the Internet boom decided to happen now -- a few years too late for our maximum profit and pleasure -- this is just further proof that cosmic forces conspire against us. So here we are now, my fellow Gen Suckers. We're nearing and entering middle age, a forgotten and forgettable generation, and the sands are shifting fast beneath our feet. For a lucky and daring few, the Internet boom will be an opportunity to strike it rich and partake of the great bounty. But for most of us, these next few years will see us grasping at outmoded jobs and struggling to learn new ways while others get rich. And to make matters worse, that kid we used to baby-sit? Our buddy's drooling little brother we made fun of when we were stoned? He's our 25-year-old CEO now. Because he -- damn him and his kind -- started the Internet company that just bought the company that merged with the company where we just got promoted to executive V.P. I'm sure there is a better response to all of this than anger and envy, a way of looking at it that won't lead to myocardial infarction. (We Suckers have to start worrying about such things.) One of these was suggested to me by a fellow 37-year-old I met on jury duty recently. We got into one of those spill-gut conversations you get into on jury duty and when I professed my feelings about our luckless generation, my fellow juror clucked his tongue. Oh, no, he corrected me, we play a very important role in this New World. We are the "bridge" between the upstarts and the old farts. We have a foot in either generation and so we can "explain" them to each other. For a few days, I liked the sound of this. But then I started to reflect upon what it means to be a bridge. You're a hard, cold immobile structure that gets walked all over as they -- the other guys -- meet and trade. Who wants to be a bridge? No, thanks. I'll take anger and envy. You want to smack a 20-something? Claim that feeling. Go for it.
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