Anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with my blog of the last, oh I guess, 6 months or so, might know that I have been on again, off again searching out the people I was young with thirty five years ago.Using kind words to describe what they are now to what most were back in the day would be to say that they have mellowed. If I were to use the words that more accurately portray what many of my peers from yesteryear are now, well, many have become tight ass old farts who are too used to the comforts they have and now fear the change they supported back in the day. They have become their parents.
For many Boomers, there is no fire, no passion about anything but the material aspects of their lives or the prospects of change on those material aspects in the future. As their lives slowly march towards the Sunset, it's all about how comfortable can they be before they die.
I am not excluding myself here. I have also become comfortable I guess with my position in the scheme of things. I enjoy being isolated from most of the madness now sweeping the planet. I am concerned about the material aspects of my life and also concerned about their status in the future. My seventeen year old cathode tube TV is on it's way out. Lately it has been refusing to turn off when urged to do so by pushing the button. I need some new shoes, new glasses, and my teeth could probably use a tune up. I too would like to continue with at least the comfort level I have now.
At age 22 my peers and I were often seen protesting for change. Anti-war, Gay rights, Women's rights, Civil Rights. We were all about letting people live their lives as they saw fit.
Now my generation makes up the bulk of the population who are protesting against change or out of self interest, protesting for change directly affecting their lives. Without a consideration for what keeping the status quo may cost future generations, they assemble wearing silly hats and whine about how tough their lives might be if this or that happens. Many go so far as to hoping they can dictate how others live or don't live.
I have never been more ashamed of many of my old friends than I am now. Many of my Boomer peers have forgotten that one of the few constants in this Universe of ours is "Things will Change". Nothing remains the same forever. You can either get in front of it and help that change make the most positive impact. Or you can stand around with rifles on your shoulder whining about the change that will happen no matter what weapon you are packing.
I have never been one to seek rapid change. Maybe it is my conservative roots or the lessons of my own knee jerk ways that make me slow to accept anything new. But I always end up at least tolerating the change that comes my way. And often I embrace it. Well, that's not exactly true. I have never embraced Rap which became Hip Hop and the crotch around the knees look. But I tolerate it. And that is what a sizable portion of my population has lost. They have lost their ability to tolerate that which does not fit into their narrowing view of the World. Predictable maybe, but I don't have to like it. And I no longer have to like them.
A follow Up of sorts - In all fairness to one of the jokers who disrespected the man with Parkinson's at the Tea Bagger Rally in Ohio, I should at least recognize that at least one of those braindead idiots stood up, apologized and is feeling, I think, real remorse for his actions. He made no excuse. He blamed no one but himself.
I have to respect that kind of ownership. A tip of my hat to Chris Reichert.
Keep it 'tween the Ditches........................
12 comments:
Maybe it's a natural process of aging that narrowing of view. It requires effort and energy to even understand a debated issue.
Those of us over 50 understand that there are only so many solutions to a given problem. We have the benefit of experience and history on our side but alas not the energy or motivation. That may be just an aspect of aging, a natural part of life. I couldn't say for sure.
Now you kids get off my lawn you'll wreck the grass!
I'm 65 and I still have the hippy urge for social change-I want an end to the wars we're engaged in. I want single-payer health care. I want a tax code that doesn't favor the very rich. I want banking reform and very tough regulation of the financial institutions that are "too big to fail." I want strong labor unions that help to protect workers.
And I don't want anything to do with the people I knew when I was young- they always piss me off with their selfish, smug ignorance.
I also have a problem with people under 35 who don't know anything about history or current political events, who don't vote, who know fuck-all. So, you kids, get your ignorant asses off my grass.
The only good revolution was the one we won. Anything else is counter revolutionary and must be crushed. Whatever gains accrued from the '60's are enough. "Now shut up and go away and quit bothering us with your radical ideas. I'm alright and if you aren't, it is your own fault".
They say that the young are socialist or have no heart and the old are capitalist or have no brain. I must have been built backwards as I was pretty much a redneck as a youth. The older I get and the more of the world I see, the more of a radical socialist I become. When my time comes at age 90 or so, I will likely be angry enough to go and blow something up just to make a social statement.
I'm all for social change, don't want to go back to the dark ages like Reich-WingNuts would have us go.
I would like the tax code to be made more fair for those who are actually making the products or providing the services. Unearned income should be taxed at a much higher rate than earned income.
When it comes to things like electronics, I wait until they have worked most of the bugs out of them(I hope!!). Also after they sell a bunch and have production up to speed the price usually comes down.
For many Boomers, there is no fire, no passion about anything but the material aspects of their lives or the prospects of change on those material aspects in the future.
While there are huge exception I'm afraid that to get the country back on track moving toward "the more perfect Union" again all the old farts that I include myself are going to have to die and be swept away by a younger more open-minded generation.
What, so you don't think homers should be segregated and the womenfolk should be making my teabag?
A shame what the corrupting power of the invisible hippie mind control ray can do to a man.
Physically I'm 52. Mentally I'm 16 on a good day - ie a normal male.
Only anarchy can cure humanity of it's insanity.
We aren't a life form, we're a virus.
Mother nature will take us down one day and good riddance (er...providing I'm already dead and gone of course)...;-)
Boomers, unhappy idiots no matter how much they have. Myself being one of the exceptions.
Not that I'm not unhappy, but it's not because I don't have all the shit everyone else has.
Now you kids get off my lawn you'll wreck the grass!
Come over to my place kids, I don't like mowing that shit anyway.
But if your mommies don't want you learning salty things stay out of my fucking yard.
Come to think of it, just stay out of my fucking yard anyway, I don't have much use for kids.
I want single-payer health care.
I want someone to explain to me what she said. Just exactly what is single-payer health care?
Is it pay for your own health care without help from a social system?
And if you can't afford to pay your own way you die?
Only anarchy can cure humanity of it's insanity.
I wouldn't take any bets on that, but it's worth a shot and may be fun.
I'd better get more serious about another gun.
Damn it Mike, if you meant to or not, you made me feel better about the world at large.
The spirit and drive of the hippies isn't lost on me even though I was born at the tail end of it. They sought to right wrongs and to turn back injustice when they found it. I don't think that spirit has died. Morphed, changed, or lies dormant, but it ain't dead. Those who once banded together to help us all, who preached inclusion and open mindedness haven't warped into selfish bastards of the worst sort. Not all of them anyway. There is still some of that alive and well. Utah Savage is a fine example.
The Freak Flag still flys but it is often hard to see through the upraised hands who shout "Give me mine! Give me mine!"
Thomas Jefferson was asked to write the section on religious freedoms Virginia's constitution. When asked about his views on different religions taking hold in the great state of Virginia, he was quoted as saying, "It neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket." I am under the impression these Boomers feel like they are getting their pockets picked.
Well f*ck 'em. If they can't see that giving a poor man $50 worth of medicine for $5 is going to get him back to work faster so he can pay more taxes, make him a better wage earner so he can put his kid through school, keep him from being tempted to enter into crime to provide for his most basic needs, well f*ck 'em.
Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick and it won't be the first time or the last, but making a better, more healthy citizenry seems like a noble and worth wile pursuit.
But just to be on the safe side, BBC & I are looking into a new shotgun.
Thanks Mike. I'll sleep a little better tonight.
Doc
I last saw 60 a few years ago and I remember well enough that out of that numerically vast generation only a small percentage dropped out. I didn't like the selfish egotistical a^*holes then any more than I'd claim to be one with them now.
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