Very well expressed. I am 62. I have a number of peers who will talk about nothing but bourbon, cigars and sportsball, as their kids' lives blow up around them. You probably have lots of peers like that too. Most are willfully obtuse, some are just burned out and resigned.
The downfall I see among your peer group and younger is heavy marijuana use. And I am not preachy about it at all, but it seems to turn people into the biggest dullards I've ever seen. No hobbies, no intellectual spark, no drive to self improvement and beautification of their surroundings, just blobs working to buy the food and the weed.
GenX here (older so it took a while to become obvious that the ladder had been pulled up after the boomers. )
I"m TIRED of listening to the same effing songs for fifty effing years.
I'm TIRED of all your "we're all one race" nonsense while you continue to move out further and further instead of defending the old neighborhoods.
I'm TIRED of being told to go learn a new skill when one, I"m on my 5th career (not job) and two, you removed all the training programs for rookies because it might affect your 401k and three you just import more H1B's and destroy that career too.
I'm TIRED of hearing about how great the stock market is, when all you did was ride a macro declining interest rate environment
I'm TIRED of being told how great your generation is when you were just born on 3rd base and think you hit a home run.
It's astounding. They won't even retrain already existing, already vetted, already demonstrably loyal employees anymore. Just bring over the next batch of Han or Hindu.
The essence of the boomer is the worship of false idols, particularly mammon, hedonism, and themselves. THAT is the source of their inability to see, hear, or speak the truth; more pointedly, they hate the truth and love the world and worldly things.
This is why they hate their kids: because they love the world. The world can't be the problem in their eyes, so the problem has to be their children. The world can't be the problem, so the problem must be actual, real Christianity that condemns the world and the worldly. Even Fox News Boomers, despite their claims to the contrary, never actually read their Bibles and loathe the idea of doing so; they'd rather hear Judeo-Boomer platitudes from Fox pundits congratulating them on their pride and worldly pursuits.
It isn't that they're just old and stuck in their ways. It's that they've chosen the world over the good, over their children, etc. They literally chose evil wholesale and continue to do so, and anyone who challenges their beloved evil, worldly ways they perceive as an enemy, indeed rightfully so.
They're not just befuddled old folks, they're fucking evil.
Not sure boomers are evil. They do serve to cause all within their surroundings to ponder deep questions: how can anyone live that long and be so dumb, so dull, so deficient spiritually (not talking about a $10K week at the ashram).
Answering such a question would aid those who are younger. Perhaps youth would align with Christianity, as many seem to be doing at present. Perhaps not, but as such they would be alert to many of the wrong turns they might take.
Very well said. Me being a simplistic man, was articulating it as: "create their own bullshit, and believing in their own bullshit".
Bullshit is not a religion. Bullshit also prevents the ability to consider two different points of view, the inability of discourse, and understanding others.
Advice, particularly Boomer advice, is offensive to anyone who is struggling in what is perceived by the suffering to be a unique struggle. Debt too large, pay too small. No one has ever weathered such circumstances before.
Yet present circumstances may in fact be different in degree and in kind. Old aspirations to security may be passing away. The question becomes: what then?
'Stop whining' is not bad counsel. It's just that it gets no one anywhere. The quiet is pleasant nonetheless.
To purge oneself of Boomer toxicity, turn to Balsamic Dreams by Joe Queenan or Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks.
Unless youre a construction worker, or something else that is physical and also sometimes extra long hours. But sure. Your personal experience is evidence of some universal truth.
I think everyone regardless of generation needs to self-reflect on how to be virtuous in the new conditions. Endlessly complaining is futile. The boomers clearly made bad decisions, and most of our generation are also making bad decisions. Just try to stop the cycle of inter-generational malice and refusal to accept responsibility that the "trust no one over 30" generation started.
I like the general idea of this post but there is a common and very big assumption: that there is one set of generalities that applies to almost an entire generation.
MY observation is that while a significant majority of boomers had it fairly easy since Reagan and Clinton, a large minority were shafted pretty hard, for example in the Rust Belt. The same for the younger generations: while a significant majority have been shafted pretty hard by persistent reaganism/clintonism, a large minority are doing really well still.
Many "centrists" abhor pointing out that the situation was and is different for large groups of people because it is "divisive" but it is instead quite realistic.
Navy Seals the good guys right; "We got him", so said the first whole cloth manufactured president from the ground up with Mac truck sized holes in his biography, and didn't these masters of assassination just kill Korean fisherman outed by the paper of record and the journalist are on the hook, pedophile gangsters come in all demographics
I'm the first of Gen X although my thinking is more Zoomer. Part of that is because I have to live in a world in which hard and imaginative work is not only thankless but will always be published.
Your precis of the book reinforces my impression that McRaven is a fraud. I wonder if he wrote that before (as I recall) angling to be SecDef and being rejected?
He will be forever remembered for faking the “raid” that was in fact cold blooded murder of OBL when the Pakistanis handed him over on a plate. What a squalid abuse that was of the skills and reputation of US special forces.
On the Silent generation - I never knew any of them to talk about war in anything other than tones of horror and regret. That seems to be the lesson we are doomed to forget, and then relearn.
Very well expressed. I am 62. I have a number of peers who will talk about nothing but bourbon, cigars and sportsball, as their kids' lives blow up around them. You probably have lots of peers like that too. Most are willfully obtuse, some are just burned out and resigned.
The downfall I see among your peer group and younger is heavy marijuana use. And I am not preachy about it at all, but it seems to turn people into the biggest dullards I've ever seen. No hobbies, no intellectual spark, no drive to self improvement and beautification of their surroundings, just blobs working to buy the food and the weed.
No argument here. Weed is a soul killer. Would argue cocaine is better for you.
OMG THIS. I have NEVER met a pothead worth a damn. Never
I'd rather work with a functioning alcoholic than a pothead.
Totally agree about the blobs just buying stuff, which really explains why it's gone from "weed is the devil" to "weed is legal everywhere"
Hell you can smoke weed in places you can't smoke tobacco now. (which is insane)
GenX here (older so it took a while to become obvious that the ladder had been pulled up after the boomers. )
I"m TIRED of listening to the same effing songs for fifty effing years.
I'm TIRED of all your "we're all one race" nonsense while you continue to move out further and further instead of defending the old neighborhoods.
I'm TIRED of being told to go learn a new skill when one, I"m on my 5th career (not job) and two, you removed all the training programs for rookies because it might affect your 401k and three you just import more H1B's and destroy that career too.
I'm TIRED of hearing about how great the stock market is, when all you did was ride a macro declining interest rate environment
I'm TIRED of being told how great your generation is when you were just born on 3rd base and think you hit a home run.
The day of the pillow approaches.
It's astounding. They won't even retrain already existing, already vetted, already demonstrably loyal employees anymore. Just bring over the next batch of Han or Hindu.
The essence of the boomer is the worship of false idols, particularly mammon, hedonism, and themselves. THAT is the source of their inability to see, hear, or speak the truth; more pointedly, they hate the truth and love the world and worldly things.
This is why they hate their kids: because they love the world. The world can't be the problem in their eyes, so the problem has to be their children. The world can't be the problem, so the problem must be actual, real Christianity that condemns the world and the worldly. Even Fox News Boomers, despite their claims to the contrary, never actually read their Bibles and loathe the idea of doing so; they'd rather hear Judeo-Boomer platitudes from Fox pundits congratulating them on their pride and worldly pursuits.
It isn't that they're just old and stuck in their ways. It's that they've chosen the world over the good, over their children, etc. They literally chose evil wholesale and continue to do so, and anyone who challenges their beloved evil, worldly ways they perceive as an enemy, indeed rightfully so.
They're not just befuddled old folks, they're fucking evil.
Not sure boomers are evil. They do serve to cause all within their surroundings to ponder deep questions: how can anyone live that long and be so dumb, so dull, so deficient spiritually (not talking about a $10K week at the ashram).
Answering such a question would aid those who are younger. Perhaps youth would align with Christianity, as many seem to be doing at present. Perhaps not, but as such they would be alert to many of the wrong turns they might take.
Very well said. Me being a simplistic man, was articulating it as: "create their own bullshit, and believing in their own bullshit".
Bullshit is not a religion. Bullshit also prevents the ability to consider two different points of view, the inability of discourse, and understanding others.
All of this is the work of the devil...
As one approaching the "too old to change" category... Can I be proud to say that I have successfully figured nothing out?
Advice, particularly Boomer advice, is offensive to anyone who is struggling in what is perceived by the suffering to be a unique struggle. Debt too large, pay too small. No one has ever weathered such circumstances before.
Yet present circumstances may in fact be different in degree and in kind. Old aspirations to security may be passing away. The question becomes: what then?
'Stop whining' is not bad counsel. It's just that it gets no one anywhere. The quiet is pleasant nonetheless.
To purge oneself of Boomer toxicity, turn to Balsamic Dreams by Joe Queenan or Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks.
Enlightening, in a sense edifying, and entertaining essay. Thank you. Godspeed.
At 40, you've only begun to feel older. When you're 65÷, you'll have a better idea of what it's like.
Unless youre a construction worker, or something else that is physical and also sometimes extra long hours. But sure. Your personal experience is evidence of some universal truth.
So I guess you also don't really know. I hope you make it that long to experience the real thing.
Good luck
I think everyone regardless of generation needs to self-reflect on how to be virtuous in the new conditions. Endlessly complaining is futile. The boomers clearly made bad decisions, and most of our generation are also making bad decisions. Just try to stop the cycle of inter-generational malice and refusal to accept responsibility that the "trust no one over 30" generation started.
I like the general idea of this post but there is a common and very big assumption: that there is one set of generalities that applies to almost an entire generation.
MY observation is that while a significant majority of boomers had it fairly easy since Reagan and Clinton, a large minority were shafted pretty hard, for example in the Rust Belt. The same for the younger generations: while a significant majority have been shafted pretty hard by persistent reaganism/clintonism, a large minority are doing really well still.
Many "centrists" abhor pointing out that the situation was and is different for large groups of people because it is "divisive" but it is instead quite realistic.
Navy Seals the good guys right; "We got him", so said the first whole cloth manufactured president from the ground up with Mac truck sized holes in his biography, and didn't these masters of assassination just kill Korean fisherman outed by the paper of record and the journalist are on the hook, pedophile gangsters come in all demographics
I'm seventy-four and can wipe my own ass. Talk to me when you achieve that milestone.
What do you say to we zoomers who did it and succeeded?
Generational wealth, carefully controlled lineages and bureaucratic empires are running the show. Blaming things on Boomers is preposterous.
I'm the first of Gen X although my thinking is more Zoomer. Part of that is because I have to live in a world in which hard and imaginative work is not only thankless but will always be published.
Excellent article!
Your precis of the book reinforces my impression that McRaven is a fraud. I wonder if he wrote that before (as I recall) angling to be SecDef and being rejected?
He will be forever remembered for faking the “raid” that was in fact cold blooded murder of OBL when the Pakistanis handed him over on a plate. What a squalid abuse that was of the skills and reputation of US special forces.
On the Silent generation - I never knew any of them to talk about war in anything other than tones of horror and regret. That seems to be the lesson we are doomed to forget, and then relearn.