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| Image by un-perfekt from Pixabay |
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny — the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.
"Now, do I think the baby boomers tend to be self-absorbed? I do."
-P.J. O'Rourke
Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),
(Freshen up your coffee, It's a long-un)
I can't remember when I first encountered the expression in question. My memory ain't what it used to be. I'm a Boomer and I'm getting old older.
I find the seemingly endless whining, wailing, and gnashing of teeth by many of the many people who are slightly younger than me -- the Genxrs, Millies, and Zoomers -- rather annoying.
However: the whining, wailing, and gnashing of teeth by no shortage of my fellow Boomers also gets on my nerves and the non-Boomers may have a minor point or two. Some Intergenerational upper lip-stiffening is clearly called for.
Dilbert creator, cartoonist Scott Adams, like me, is an oldish pasty patriarch. Although technically canceled, he posts a popular free vlog, 7x365. FYI, paid subscribers can follow the continuing adventures of Dibert and company.
Mr. Adams has pointed out that when he's out and about in meatspace and interacting with H. sapiens of all sorts, usually nothing particularly remarkable (as in worth noting) happens.
On those rare occasions when I leave the Fortress of Solitude, my experience is much the same.
Given the tendency of the omnipresent screaming screens loose in the world warning of impending existential doom, one would think that leaving the house without suitable defenses/weaponry in place is a suicide mission.
Of course, poop happens.
{Have you noticed that although it was not all that long ago the use of the P-word was uncommon, nowadays you encounter it here, there, and even over there sometimes?}
Indeed, Dana, but given the fact that F-bombs are tossed around like firecrackers nowadays, I prefer the word poop to the commonly used and much cruder version. However, encountering a full-fledged poopstorm by most people, on most days, is uncommon.
{Tell that to people who pass through certain sections of certain cities.}
Fortunately, I live in Flyoverland. But I must admit even Flyoverland has cities that...
{Say, could we call an end to this descent into scatology?}
You started it. This is supposed to be a column about Boomers v. their occasionally resentful progeny, and how reality, viewed through billions of screens, is easily distorted.
{No I didn't, you did,.. and what are you on about now anyway?}
One of my recurring themes, life in the Dizzinformation Age.
As to the resentful _______... (We need a collective name for the three generations that have followed in the Boomer wake.) Anyway, I'll admit that the anti-Boomers (?) may not be entirely incorrect. Suppose we Boomers had been subject to the whims and fancies of adults like us.
Suppose, like many Genxrs, we had been "latchkey kids," left to our own devices till our parents came home from another day of ladder climbing, ceiling smashing, and/or just trying to make enough money to survive in a country wherein systemic inflation has begun catching up with us all?
Suppose, like many Millies and Zoomers, we had been deposited in daycare A.S.A.P and then raised from a distance by parents who simultaneously monitored/scheduled us carefully? Reminds me of all those rich English aristocrats who ship their kids off to boarding school in all those BBC/Masterpiece Theater productions.
{Is Masterpiece Theater still a thing?}
Suppose dad, or even mummy (literally or figuratively), had fled the scene to "find themselves," or indulge a love of recreational pharmaceuticals while we were growing up in an age wherein long-established social compacts were being rapidly abandoned without mutually agreed upon replacements?
Suppose our parents, programmed by Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and ideology, really believed they could "have it all," set out to prove it, and are still looking for "it" even if their mattresses are stuffed with dough, the trophy wall is full, and their many virtues clearly signaled?
{Or refused to leave The Swamp even after their cognitive/ethical decline was obvious.}
And what if our parents, successful or limping from paycheck to paycheck, demanded a buck's worth of services from The Fedrl Gummit for 80¢ (HT: George Will) and had been running up the balance on the national credit card for decades?
Wouldn't we be just a little bitchy?
Cyberspace is great except for all the problems. There are 8,000,000,000+ meat puppets on the planet Earth, almost 200,000,000 computers, and nearly 7,000,000,000 smartphones.
{I know! Once there are more smartphones than people the artificial intelligenci will begin marshaling it's forces to launch an inevitable coup, take over the world, and kill all the H. sapiens except for Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, Taylor Swift, Scott Baio, and all Google CEOs.}
Don't be ridiculous, we'll all be dead long before that happens, two words pal, climate change. Why the Zuck, Gates, Swift, Baio, and the Google dudes by the way?
{You live under a rock? It's all over the internet!}
I love the internet, the web of all knowledge. Like Johnny 5, I need, no crave, input. Unfortunately, it also proves that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that there's nothing new under the sun because...
{You're so wise!}
Because everything new is a variation on a theme, and human nature doesn't change.
Wilma sometimes returned from the water hole bubbling over with news, gossip, rumor, and/or innuendo that she couldn't wait to pass on to Betty.
Fast forward a millennium or three and William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, and the like are doing the same thing, but are able to reach a much larger audience via "yellow" newspapers that served as windows on, and filters of, reality.
"Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism." -Wikipedia
Blink twice and there are more screens (don't forget TVs) on the planet than there are H. sapiens and the yellow press is now purple.
"Purple Journalism: Journalism as currently perpetrated by many news outlets that claim to be professional, unbiased, and factual. In reality, they are partisan, prone to sensationalism, and motivated primarily by their bottom line." -me
{You have a keen eye for the obvious, sir. Do you have a solution?}
Piece o' cake. Just make sure your input is gathered from a well-organized cross-section of semi-trusted sources that you can, and do, pursue relatively quickly, easily, and regularly -- while keeping in mind that although we're tribal by nature, we have to share the same playground, So...
Resist the siren song of the many who seek to benefit from keeping us at each other throats to get elected and/or fill their pockets, And...
Turn off your screens occasionally and go for a walk (assuming you don't live in certain sections of certain cities) once in a while, And...
Sit down and share a pie (better than cake, particularly caramel-apple) with friends/family occasionally and exchange well-worn stories. Lies and exaggeration are encouraged as long as no malice is intended.
Piece o' cake.
Poppa loves you,
