Manifesto Part II

I'm in my forties. Marketers tell me I'm an In-Betweener. I am in between the Baby-Boomers and Generation-X. Truth be told, I feel more Gen-X than Boomer.

My grandparents were the Greatest Generation. I guess that makes my parents In-Betweeners too. They were in between the Greatest Generation and The ME Generation but I'm pretty sure they were well rooted in the ME Generation.

The Greatest Generation sounds like a challenge. I'm not a competitive sort but it sounds like the impact of a thrown glove when someone says "The Greatest Generation". You think you can do better? Not likely.

I'm bitter about the ME Generation. So bitter, that I relish that moniker. I love to look at my parents and think "Yep, indulgent and self-centered". I love my folks. I really do but, Jesus Christ, the shit they got away with? I mean, really? Our generation, in-betweener or Generation-X, we would never dare to be so self-indulgent. Ever.

Marketers say we are nourishers. We are reacting to the abandonment we felt while our parents were pursuing their whims and getting divorces. Yeah, I'm good with that...almost.

The nourishing can stop. It can end. We don't have to go to our graves as the "almost-ran" generation. We don't have to live in the shadow of our grandparents. There is no reason for us to fritter away our time making amends for the sins of our parents. We have plenty of time to sin for ourselves.

We are the first generation that knows it will live past seventy. There's a good chance a bunch of us will make it to one hundred. That gives us each eight to thirty-five years of unfettered, non-nourishing, time to ourselves. Think about it.

Here's my plan. Let's raise our kids to be the little geniuses we know they are. Once they are out of the house, once they land that post-graduate job or get married, or start a band or whatever they hell end game we're killing ourselves to get to, let's turn inward. Let's be more "ME" than "Greatest".

Being the first generation to know it will live past seventy is significant. We need to write our license to be indulgent. We need to express OUR selves after sixty-five. Hell, we should start now.

Oh? Should we be more "Greatest" than "ME", you might ask? Fuck no. That's what we're raising the little bastards for, right? Our little geniuses are supposed to fix the planet. You didn't listen to all of that Mozart while pregnant for nothing. Well guess what? We're done. We gave them all of the tools we could. We nourished them right into University and beyond. We're retired. We are RE-TIRED.

Beware passion! Don't let the snake oil salesman lure you away in pursuit of your passion. You don't need to pursue your passion to find happiness. It is enough to get through every day. It is enough that we have raised a generation of geniuses (and not serial killers). Let's not waste our time in pursuit of a passion. It is too easy to fail. "Oh, I didn't live my passion!" "Oh, I must be a failure because my passion has not been expressed". Fuck your passion. Don't worry about it.

Instead of pursuing a passion, let's do this, BE PASSIONATE. We shall live our lives with passion. We will die laughing. We will kiss with our tongues long past it being appropriate. We will dance better than the next three generations combined. When we die, our girlfriends will stuff our coffins with their panties. Ours will be the exit of a super nova. We'll leave the next generation to text "WTF?".

Let's be nourishers and then let's be done. And then the party will start. Who's in?