Right Here Right Now

by Jesus Jones from Doubt

Hello again. Yes, it is my second post of the month. Wow, with this much frequency, one would think this blogging could become a habit :-P Anyway, just wanted to get a few things off my chest. So be prepared that this will be one of my patented ultra long posts. First off, an update from my last entry. I did finish up my draft of my note last week. I showed it around to some of my co-workers who have published before and the answer I got was that it is a publishable idea/paper but just not for the conference I wanted to submit it to. So yeah, I am going to hold off and submit it to a few other conferences later on. Granted I did finish my draft about 5 months early. This past weekend, I went to the city to have dinner at Pacific Catch, which is the only few appearances I ever make in the Marina, especially since I am not into Marina chicks. I also helped some people move.

The major gist of this entry is that I have been reflecting on the past lately. It has come up with in some recent conversations with various people. In addition, I read the cover story of last week's Newsweek, called the Divorce Generation. I also read an interesting article about Generation X in Time last week. But what most brought this on is that I am going to turn 29 in 2 weeks.

I am realizing that I will am gonna be 29, which is just one year away from the big 3-0, and it is turning into a big deal for me. For once, its the age where it is pretty much expected that you have your shit together. It is now accepted your college years are for goofing off and having fun. And that the first few years out of college are for exploring and figuring out what you want to do (what college originally was supposed to be about). The Mid-20's are about now that you have figured out what you want or don't want, now start actually making some progress to that. And by your late 20's, that's when you have your act together and are settled into permanent adulthood. Now that is all good and all but it is still disquieting to me for several reasons. One is that I am still in the mindset that while I am older I hadn't reached the permanent maturity level. Where it is expected that people call you "Mr." and you don't find it weird. But yeah now I realize that getting to the age that I am getting to, perhaps it is time to start acting like well someone more my age and not secretly wanting to say "That's what she said!" when someone says, "I'm in a rush." Another reason is that I thought I was making up for lost time. For those you have followed ma blog for a long time, my undergrad college years were definitely not easiest nor the funniest. I took an overloaded course load, worked 2 sometimes 3 jobs, and pretty much ended up in the financial aid office the beginning of every quarter begging, in some form or another, for more financial aid. Even the first few years post college were not easy street because I making crap wages contracting at Cisco. But at least those years were more fun. Then I went away for grad school, where I made up for lost time by once going to 4 consecutive nights of happy hours, throwing up in somebody's front lawn, stumbling home drunk one night because I was too drunk to ask for a ride, and somehow getting a masters degree in the process. After grad school, I was in the mindset of "let's keep this crazy train going" and openly derided people who decided to "become lame" by getting married, buying houses, and having babies. That was two years ago, and yeah I guess my views have changed. I guess I should "become lame" also because quite honestly, getting completely hammered and having raging hangovers has sorta lost its appeal over the years.

In some ways, I am sorta already there. I now have my masters, a "career" in a field that I am actually interested in (in contrast to the 17 jobs - I kid you not, I had in various capacities from 98 to 06), 401K, stock, and yeah, a money market account and an accountant to help figured it all out. But in other ways, I am sorta still stuck in the early/mid 20's mode. Obviously, in the dating and relationship area, where other people are now married, I am still looking for first, not even second dates. Culture-wise I still listen to pretty much the same kind of music I listened to in high school. I pretty much like the same kind of books and movies also. I do watch more PBS but that's not out of the ordinary for me since I watched an above average amount of PBS when I was 21. And while people have bought houses, I am still completely obvious to the idea of actually "owning" property. So yeah it is bit scary that "thirty-something" is right around the corner and I got X-Files posters from back when I was 16 still on my walls (granted thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifey are in frames now).

After reading the Generation X article in Time, it dawned on me that I am now the same age of the characters in the book Generation X by Douglas Coupland, one of my favorite books that gave the mid to late 20 year old slacker generation of the 90's its name. By some of the more generous classifications of Generation X (1965 - 1980), I fall into the very tail end of it. The next generation Y or the Millennials starts somewhere around 80 to 84 into the 90's. I definitely feel much more connection to Generation X. Primarily because my childhood reflected much more of X. I was a child of divorce with a working single parent in a time where it was expected that most kids had two parents. I remember in elementary school I was one of the handful of kids who had divorced parents. Plus growing up (and being aware of things in the 80's and even into the early 90's), you could tell that some things were coming apart. The end of the cold war, recession, the first offshoring of manufactoring jobs, AIDs, it all added up. I think Generation X recognized the script being fed to us was a myth. In the 80's, it was Reagan's America where every family had 2 parents, 2 kids, a Ford, a well-paying job that could send your kids to college to prepare them even more well-paying jobs. In the 80's this got taken to extremes with the decade of greed, Wall Street, junk-bonds etc. But by the time Generation X came around into this world, the plot unraveled. All that materialism of the 80's proved empty when it could all be taken away in an instance. The Soviet Union, despite what many conservatives credit Ronald Reagan 100% with, was brought by down guess what, its own people in the end. All those good jobs for college graduates dried up in the recession and then all those manufacturing jobs went to Mexico, and int turn later went to China. I definitely felt more connection with Generation X who saw all this and decide to rewrite the script. I think Generation X realized that companies have no loyalty to employees therefore we should have no loyalty to them so working at one job for a year or less is no big deal. Grunge, HipHop, alternative music were all welcomed departures to the glam, pop tastes of the 80's. Globalization, environmentalism, gay rights, ethnic studies were being talked about much more after taking a second seat in the 80's. To me the willingness to rewrite the script handed over by the boomers really attracted me to Generation X.

That's not to say all the stuff the baby boomers did was bad nor everything Generation X did was good. Yes, the boomers did fuck up the Middle East (ie. giving Saddam weapon's back in the 80's against Iran and arming what would become the Taliban against the Soviets were not good ideas), which X, Y, and generation z will have to clean up. But hey the "Greatest Generation" did a pretty shitty job with Vietnam which the boomers had to suffer through. But the boomers also did bring up environmentalism, civil rights, and many other good things. I think the biggest thing I fault Generation X is our cynicism. Since we saw that the script was wrong, we became cynical and skeptical of everything. This led to the all black wearing, philosophy reading, coffeehouse slacker stereotype. But there is more cynicism now and I don't think it is a good thing. We start thinking everything is crap, you start looking for any imperfection or blemish to confirm your suspicions and to reassure yourself you were right all along. We know have an entire entertainment industry (reality TV) devoted to showing us how narcissitic, absorbed, and ignorant real people can be. In addition, people who recognized we were cynical and developed new and more elaborate ways of exploiting our cynicism to divide, sell, and advertise to us. Which breeds even more cynicism which leads to even more programmed, scripted, spin-controlled ways to trying to fool us. It is a vicious circle. I also find it ironic that Generation X turned into the dot-com, gold-rush generation of the late 90's that exemplified get-rich-quick. But then again, the company I worked for is definitely a X creation. Plus I think it was unheard of that people would join a start-up over a big company straight out of school if given the choice 15 or 20 years ago.

So yeah I definitely fall into Generation X more than Y. Especially based on what I see of teenagers, college kids, and even new grads today. I now somewhat understand, although most definitely don't agree with, with how previous generations judge what happens after them. Everytime a new generation comes in and rewrites the script, things from previous generations get tossed. And some of things are bad (I think everyone is glad for the civil rights generation finally tossing segregation behind) but not all those things are bad, some are even good. For example, I think people in my age range are the last to able to ride bicycles without helmets, play with realistic toy guns, listen to records, type on a type writer, look something up in a non-digital encyclopedia, partake in unorganized afternoon activities (I was amazed to actually see kids playing in the street without any adult supervision a while back even though I did all throughout elementary school), and watch saturday morning cartoons. Now these things may seem trivial, but compared to how sheltered the Millennials seem to be, I am sorta glad I got the chance. I think this Millenial generation got off easy on many things thanks to advanced technology and many people realizing screw-ups made with previous generations (I find it ironic that baby boomers who got to go to college for pretty much free are now whining about having to pay for their kids when they consistently voted against tax raises for education). But then again, Generation Y has had to grow up with 9/11 in its shadow. Even growing up during the 80's, I never felt that I ever stood a chance of getting killed in attack on US soil. It was just never a possibility. Unfortunately there are small reminders and sometimes annoying reminders (like airport security) that it is a possibility today.

So yeah I don't know where I was heading with all this. Just trying to get this all out of my head. But one thing I do know is that yeah, the times are a changing and I should probably change along with them. Until next time, peace.