Hello dear reader! Today I have to rant; well, perhaps not rant as that is a fairly strong word and while impassioned, I intend to remain essentially calm and composed, but I shall howl a little. The background of this begins with today \u2013 Halloween \u2013 and the forecast of rain. It led to a deluge of questions and comments on the dreaded Facebook from young parents asking when they are rescheduling the trick or treating due to the rain. Of course that led to a volley of replies about snowflakes and their incessant need to schedule the activities of everyone in the town around their wants and needs. People who have been around for a while (yes \u2013 old folks) were particularly vocal on how parents today need to \u201cgrow a pair\u201d and deal with a little rain. And it just got uglier from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crash and burn of this specific post culminated in an attack on the older \u201cboomers\u201d from the 18-30 year olds in the group; “all we do is complain that the young folks don\u2019t want to do things the way they\u2019ve always been done. This generation lives in a different time and do things their way and all the boomers do is complain about it.” So let\u2019s see; the generation that has decided that the two sexes (XX or XY) that have existed for the two million years hominids have lived on this earth are inadequate. Now, according to them, there are, depending upon who\u2019s list you read, anywhere between 40 and 60 different genders. I\u2019ve written on this, at least on the periphery of it, before: tradition no longer matters; in fact it is now a target for derision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the persons who left a strongly worded post against the boomers was a young man, looking to be around 19 \u2013 21 years old. He complained how boomers are always telling his generation they\u2019re wrong and all messed up. In that context he has a point; you don\u2019t teach by criticizing and always telling them that they\u2019re wrong and don\u2019t know their ass from their elbow \u2013 at least not effectively. And usually that lesson is seasoned with a comment such as \u201cwe had to walk a mile to school in the rain or snow\u2026\u201d And that never sits well, at least not as a flat text reply with no tone, inflection, or eye contact to help further refine the intended point. Social media is NOT the place to try to pass on the lessons of life to others, to the younger generations. It leads to resentment and a natural recoil against anything the older generation feels is important; the more sacred it is, the stronger the recoil from it. We are deemed judgmental know-it-alls with no tolerance for change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However the older\ngeneration has earned the right to preach; at least a little. Face it \u2013 we didn\u2019t\ntry to lead a life based upon decisions that would screw the next generation.\nWe tried our best, given the circumstances and resources, to always do the best\nto promote and enhance the lives of our children; to do the right thing. Every\ngeneration has done so throughout history. No one took action or made decisions\nwith the intent to ruin future generation\u2019s childhoods. We did our best. But the\nyounger generations do NOT get to judge and criticize us; mainly because they\nweren\u2019t here; they did NOT live through it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even an avid history or sociology scholar who has spent years reading all the published works on the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s can only have a vague glimmer of an idea of what daily life was like then; a snapshot. Ponder the old saying: \u201cyou can\u2019t judge a man until you\u2019ve walked a mile in his shoes\u201d. If you wish to criticize you have to have been there. You can certainly comment, offer an opinion, and consider alternatives. But you can\u2019t tell someone that they did it wrong when you weren\u2019t there living it. But this generation doesn\u2019t seem to understand that. There is a reason the adage \u201crespect your elders\u201d was coined \u2013 because they survived. They walked through their own personal hell and hardships that no one else can understand without having been there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve lived in seven decades, about to enter my eighth. I lived through the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, and a lifetime of hard time and hard decisions. I did my best and through it, life left its scars and marks upon me. Life simultaneously makes us stronger\/tougher and kinder\/gentler as we age; that is one the great dualities of life. Today\u2019s kids don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to not be able to drive your car because you are on empty but have an \u201codd\u201d plate and it is an \u201ceven\u201d day so you can\u2019t gas up until tomorrow. They don\u2019t know what it is like to be taught to \u201cduck and cover\u201d for when the incoming missile sirens sound. (Although I am horrified that today\u2019s kids have to be taught how to hide from a gunmen or an attacker in their school.) They don\u2019t know what it like to watch your middle-class parents struggle to make ends meet because your father lost his job during a major recession. They didn\u2019t watch lines of sobbing people get processed out of their job and their paycheck due to the economy. There is a lot of bad in the world today; a lot of horrors, but there were a lot back then when I was young too. Good and evil are our lifelong companions; ever present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A society cannot, will not, continue to exist if everyone gets what they want and has things their way. It simply can\u2019t. It may sound corny to some due to the Star Trek reference, but there is great truth in the words: \u201cthe needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few\u201d. The greater good – E Pluribus Unum \u2013 a collocation of people who share daily life under a common set of rules and expectations. Sometimes personal rights are lost to the overall rights of the group. You just can\u2019t play Led Zeppelin or Juice WRLD or even Nat King Cole at the highest volume level outside at midnight; it may be your personal desire to do so but it is not your personal right to do so \u2013 the rights of the neighborhood supersede that. You can\u2019t drive at 100mph through a school zone \u2013 you may want to or think you have a right to, but society demands a reasonable speed limit. In short, sometimes you have to suck it up and go with the flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that is something\nwe \u201cold people\u201d have learned along the way. Walking a mile in the rain or snow\ntaught me that the world does NOT revolve around me and that sometimes the\ngoing is tough and you just deal with it. And that lesson has served me well\nthroughout my life. Of course I complained, but I did it \u2013 because I had to. We\nall did. So we earned the right to scoff a little bit when a new parent asks if\nwe are rescheduling trick or treating because of some rain. Trick or treating\nin the rain makes a child realize that life is not always perfect, that things\ngo wrong, but that you can still have a great time regardless; the world doesn\u2019t\nend. In fact one of my more memorable personal recollections of Halloween was on\na chilly rainy night; it cast an eerie pall, it added character to the night,\nand I felt bolstered and stronger for having gone out in it, like I had achieved\nsomething \u2013 a victory of some sort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But beyond all this lies the concept of tradition. I\u2019ve written of it before \u2013 tradition is absolutely vital to the stability and growth of a society. It bonds us, it bands us, it fosters commonality and community in us. Changing or modifying a tradition is inevitable; that happens with every new generation in a communal evolution. In fact it is absolutely essential in ensuring the continuance of the tradition. Consider how we would all react if Halloween required us to go house to house on horseback because that is how they used to do it? Or if Easter meant having to weave a nest of native grasses for the bunny to leave his gifts within? When traditions become so cumbersome and difficult as to burden people beyond their capacity, that tradition will die. Traditions need to stay current and relevant in order to be sustained. But tearing down a tradition for your own personal convenience is NOT how society works. The sense of entitlement, of personal rights over group rights, is selfish and harmful. When everyone gets their own way, society collapses into anarchy. Read, deeply please \u2013 not just a Wikipedia paragraph – on the fall and collapse of the Roman Empire. There were a number of reasons: economical, class, military, corruption and religious; but instability due to loss of custom and tradition is part of that list. The loss of that common and familiar ground leads to the demise of the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I am not at all convinced\nthat today\u2019s youth understands this, at all. Their lack of knowledge, their lack\nof worldly experience, their selfishness, their self-centeredness, and their overwhelming\nneed for the world to revolve around them have brought us here. Consider the icon\nof this generation \u2013 the selfie. As in pictures of themselves. Self as in\nselfish. It appears to be a very self-centered generation. But I know that is\nnot true; I know there are caring, thoughtful, considerate, giving young people\neverywhere. But there is hatred provoked for what they perceive to be an attack\nupon them from their elders and they react to that \u2013 vigorously. And to me, the\nroot is social media. We are so inundated with posts that incite and provoke,\nwritten in some cases by mean-spirited people merely seeking to troll others into\na reaction, people trying to provoke. But in other cases things are written in\nan attempt to guide, to teach, to share wisdom and experience. But poor writing\nskill coupled with the inability of a flat text passage to convey emotion and\nfeeling almost invariably misses its mark and leaves the reader angered and\ninsulted. A horribly twisted spiral of hate that erupts and propagates similar hatred\n\u2013instantly \u2013 over Reddit or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. Coupled with the\nease with which to edit and alter text and images these days to better suit one\u2019s\npoint, you have the confluence of both generations coming together in\nwhirlpools of misunderstanding, misconception, and misperception all of which\nlead to this ever-widening gap of generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We elders wish our newest generation to know that life is hard \u2013 get used to that. We wish them to know that we love you but sometimes \u201cour\u201d needs outweigh \u201ctheirs\u201d. We wish them to know that tradition is important, more so for the continuity that it provides to the generations than the functional act of the tradition. We wish them to know that we have seen and lived through shit that they can\u2019t possibly understand without having gone through it as well and to know that we did the best that we could. We wish them to know that we respect their right to be different but to please understand that there are limits to how hard and far they can stretch the envelop; inventing 50 new genders does not make you visionary or revolutionary; from our perspective it just looks silly and desperate. We wish them to know that we understand the value and importance of society and community and when we are \u201ccritical\u201d or \u201cjudgmental\u201d it is solely in the interest of protecting the greater good. We wish them to know that not everything can, or should, stay as it was when we were young, but please first examine and understand the value of those things before deciding to discard them. And we wish them to know that social media is not the place to learn about the past and about traditions, nor to challenge them publicly; that only brings misunderstandings and hurtful comments. Speak to an elder face to face so that you can see the emotion in their eyes and hear the passion in their voice and feel the meaning in their words spoken with sincerity and tone and inflection. Ask a person, not Twitter. Happy Halloween dear reader, rain or shine!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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