Subscribe to Posts
coming of age in a time of bubbles bursting and towers collapsing
I came of age under the spectre of wars and rumors of war. My father fought in WW2, and I grew up with the movies of victory over tyranny. My generation learned to hide beneath our desks as the rumors of nuclear holocaust swept over us during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then I watched my city burn with helicopters circling overhead and tanks rumbling down eight mile, a block away from my house. I sweated out the draft during Vietnam as a young father and lucked out with a low (or was it a high?) lottery number. No surprise then, that my generation, approaching mid-life, fueled the culture wars. So I wonder what’s to become of a generation coming of age in a time of bursting bubbles and collapsing towers?
The dot.com bubble was in the process of bursting when the twin towers collapsed, followed in seven years time by the collapse of the housing-credit bubble. Will things ever be the same? The generation coming of age at this time is less likely to graduate from high school than were their parents. They are the first generation in a long time with lower expectations for their future than their parents generation.
I’ve been reading Genesis lately, the tower of Babel, especially. The story about the human tendency to over-reach. The story about the natural outcome of the first breach of trust: grasping for knowledge we weren’t ready for, and the double-edged sword of technology ever since.
On the one hand, it’s not good for the man to be alone. The need for community and connection. On the other, the human tendency to gather together to build towers reaching to the heavens, towers that can’t bear the weight of themselves and collapse.
All of this is playing itself out and the people coming of age at this time will be grappling with this for the rest of their lives.
I think we baby boomers need to turn our attention toward them. We need to see the world through their eyes a little bit more. We need, perhaps, to weary of our war-like tendencies. These culture wars we’ve been waging are perhaps wanting. We are the new elders of our time, after all. We have the positions of power, but not for much longer. We have had time enough to see the world through our own eyes: good wars, bad wars, culture wars. Now it’s time to see the world through theirs: bubbles bursting, towers collapsing; regathering, regrouping, picking up the pieces, connecting, reconnecting, networking–these will be their tasks.
A great shifting of gears is underway. Do you see it? Do you feel it? And what do you think it means?
Tags: baby boomers, culture wars, dot.com bubble, generations, housing bubble, millenials, tower of babel, twin towers
October 28th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
When I graduated college with dreams of becoming the kind of teacher that gave me hope when I was in school, I didn’t know how bleak the educational system had become, the world was becomming. I grew up in a wealthy suburb in California with a bit of the O.C. feel to it. Life was good, everyone drove their parents old BMW and didn’t worry much about the future. We all had great plans to be somebody some day. Thats what they taught us in school, that the world was ours for the taking.
The real world today is a bit different than I had expected. Each day I turn on the news and hear the latest crisis, terror attack, lay off notice, etc. it has become a future full of uncertainty. One I’m not sure I want to bring my own kids into.
One thing I don’t think this uncertainty means is a that the world is ending. I used to hear this a lot at the church I used to attend, that most people thought that the “end” was very close, that we are living in the “end times”. Which meant that we should burn and rape the Earth or we would be “waisting” what God has provided for us.
I have always felt that we should live as though today is our last day, but not the last day for those around us. We need to fix the problems, care for God’s creation, and make sure that each day we have made ourselves right with the Lord. If I knew today was my last day I would take the day off work, take my wife out to lunch, and then clean up the house so she wouldn’t have to do it once I’m gone.
Even if it is the “end of times” it will be the beginning of something. But really, I don’t think it’s the end of times, but maybe the end of “a time” and the beginning of another.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Great words Cali Kid, although I got a Dodge Stratus rather than a hand-me-down beamer.
I am very interested to hear what the boomers think about what we, their sons and daughters, think is important. Thanks for this post Ken, it really hits home.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
It?
I suppose that is why we are focusing so much on change during this election. As if someone different as a president will change the complexion of the ball that has been rolling since before they were born.
It is not really that deep or scandalous as conspiracy or eschatology. But a way of life we have adopted.
It just seems the more we have succumb to convenience it seems to have made cliff notes out of life.
Newspaper articles became USA Today which became brief email summarys, Family dinner became TV dinner, became fast food. Jet planes replaced cruse ships and leisure time. reading books has become listening to books. The gold standard was replaced by who knows. Need money just print it. The genius of the federal highway system opened the doorway to motor inns, and decimated small town down towns. The current financial crisis was at its core based upon unbacked insurance bets on a sure failure.
We boomers have created, in the name of effencies, a culture without tangible backing. So when systems fail…
I fear to some extent we have done a simular thing with God talk. Faith is supposed to be based upon the unseen. We struggle to make the intangable tangable and faith is seen as another one of those lies of stability.
Just thinking…
October 29th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I remember growing in an alcoholic family, abandon by my dad to a bottle, a mom who worked too much to really slow down and say i love you, just scraping by was my life, saw too much violence in my home and on tv, still remember all the movies saying us kids were bad, remember the exocist and damien movies and all the slasher teenage movies.
I remember going to church on a bus because my parents did not care to go themselves but thought it might be important for me. But those church folk did care enough to pick me up. Remember how church was a refuge from all the hate and violence that was happening around me.
Always thought when I grew up I would not depend on people who abandon me. Now I learn you need people to fill a hole that God says you need filled by others. Can not walk this life alone.
To me things falling down around me does not bother me, seems only natural to me. When I look at all the greed that has gone on with wall street, why would you think that people could get away with that very long. Money evaporates and moves as fast as smoke. Before you know it all those financial smarts will come to nothing.
People have hatred for this country and we have found who they are out there by those falling buildings. Its a choice for people to love or hate and also to forgive or become bitter.
I think all this means is a time to adjust to examine yourself, to judge yourself, to ask God what I need to do to press in to Him. When things are shaky and it all falls, my answer is my strong tower and to hide there and ask God to hide me there.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Wow, great entry Ken. A lot to think about.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:53 pm
It is important to stand your ground. Many Gen Xers respect the positions of their elders more than you would think. I personally believe that more conservative viewpoints and positions are needed as a balancing post between what faith teaches us and what the world teaches us. Just like with the baby boomer, not all Gen Xers think/believe the same.