The Lost Generation...Again
I realize that I have a lot that I want to say, to nobody in particular, about everything. Today, specifically, I’ve decided to finally publish this note I wrote back in June as the start to what I hope to keep as my blog. I guess I’ll find my direction and cadence in the process, but for now, it’s everything. And here we go:
We’re all reading these bestsellers that teach us to pay more attention to ourselves and not compare ourselves to others for validation; we are badasses, right? Unstoppable forces. Then we go onto bestseller number two that coincidentally berates our narcissism and urges us to accept that we are insignificant and our problems are a dime a dozen. Well, what now? He says we are not victims and life isn’t that serious while she says our births alone were precious obstacles we victoriously overcame and each book cost the same so whose interpretation on how I need to be as a human being in this world bears more weight? How do we succeed when we are taught manifestation of your bright future is both the key in getting there and an escape from reality and obstacles that require tackling? We are told to not be future-thinking and be mindful of our surroundings in the present, but are foolish for not saving for retirement before we have jobs to retire from. We look to reviews, articles, social media posts that explain things for us so we do not have to dive into experiences blindly. When are they going to get a LIFE app so that all vulnerability can remain deep inside and the risk of exposing a part of yourself you didn’t see trending is eradicated?
We have no idea how to interact anymore. We one up each other on both successes and failures as attempts to be relatable. We converse with one another by waiting for our chances to speak and then gaging the others’ responses so we know how we should feel about ourselves. We compete with others to win their values and goals but compete to lose with ourselves. Convincing ourselves we are at the mercy of evil un-succumbing forces is easier to accept than the notion that we can get to where we want to be by simply exuding a baseline moral consciousness and skills we could have developed in the time we’ve wasted distracting ourselves from the fact that life isn’t actually that hard. We spend countless hours looking for ways to get the desired outcome without the required work. We think that if we find a way to circumvent the effort, it’s just as commendable as the effort itself and so those results are well-deserved. After all, our problems are more complicated as we have failed to evolve as a species when it comes to problem solving. We have developed more intricate tools that allow us to depend less on our own intelligence and skills and more on little pieces of glass-covered metal concoctions that connect us to every excuse we could ever need to put off becoming who were afraid we don’t deserve to be. We pay hundreds of dollars a year to stay connected to a network of people through these devices, but they actually revoke access to basic human interaction. Do we even remember the satisfaction achieved in enjoying life without showing people who are not physically in it how it appears in the right lighting, with an audience engagement rate above industry standard?
We are reading books that are telling us why it’s okay to be who we are. There more are top-selling books with some focus on how to fix the problems you’re having with being alive than there are about anything else and I’m just here trying to understand when emotion became a phenomenon more inexplicable than what happens when we die. When did the world become so full of doubt ?