of taking the high road and getting dumped on. Can't say I feel any different.
***********************
I told someone about telling a trio of college kids what Donald Trump was going to do as soon as he got sworn in.
I told them Trump was going to evict all the aliens from Area 51. They took the bait and started carrying on. I told a friend who told my neighbors who were greatly amused.
He came over when he saw me in the driveway and we painted pictures of government men stuffing little green men onto flying saucers to be sent back to the heavens to where they came from.
Actually we laughed at how stupid a lot of college kids are.
Then we thought about it some more and we admitted we are scared. Those dumbasses will be leading the country in a few short years. It's scary as hell.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Millennials are a mixed bag Pic.
ReplyDeleteThere appear to be two subsets who give me hope:
- The situationally aware, curious, and applied sort that are a percentage of every generation. I'd guess you'd be part of that group from your generation.
- The can-do types. As these groups are not mutually exclusive, I'd say you'd map onto this for your generation also.
There is a big difference today though - and it is NOT the people, rather it is social media/instant communication at no discernible cost.
Social Media seems to rule the Millennial masses. While they may have a few mavericks and independent minds, the beating down to a commonality of by the pressures of social media is profound. If someone of this generation is not on FaceBook, Instagram, Snapchat, and all the other instant communication programs they are all but shunned by the group. Forced conformity. The whole "like" process is a further hammer forging clones rather than free minds.
Social media use then spills into "Dark Social Media" such as the various hook-up apps all spiraling to a dark place. While previous generations may have had dreams of getting their rocks off with almost strangers who likewise just wanted sex without commitment, those dreams back then were largely "wet dreams" and usually not acted out. For a Millennial how do you ever develop a lifetime relationship with love and respect from a social network based on hump-and-run sex first interactions.
Because so much of this communication/interaction happens without significant cost, their is little filter to separate garbage from genius. Run back in time to when print and vinyl records were the main communications. Because there was a significant cost to prepare, produce and distribute books, magazines, newspapers, and records & tapes, the cost factor introduced marketplace quality pressures. A producer didn't spend thousands recording and mastering music that they didn't think was really good stuff. But today along with the genius productions direct access to widespread distribution gives Millennials, it also allows garbage to be posted as an equal to the genius.
I could go on about the blunting of Millennial discernment through virtualization fantasies picked up by gaming - how many violent crimes by Millennials are at least in part committed out of the disconnect from real consequences virtualized gaming life developed in these youth? Think of the sexual hitch-up apps, back in the day would you really wave wanted to bang some gal you didn't know who was obviously a mattress-back? No wonder STD/STI are rampant among Millennials, as those of an older generation knew better than stick our willies into dirty shopworn nasty places. While we might have dreamt of hooking up with a nympho, it was a "girl next door" sort of nympho who only was doing us, not some ditzy app-guided whore.
The masses of information slung at Millennials is "bubbled" by a peer group induced filter as well. The AI-like aspect of their communication world ends up mixing custom Kool-Aide for each Millennial and feeding them with it. The cycle once started is hard to break. Personalized Group-Think virtual reality.
ReplyDeleteThere is hope though Pic.
There are those in the generation who have a big picture view, have situational awareness, and haven't fallen prey to the idea that everything before them was rubbish. I've met Millennials who knew Ayn Rand's works better than I, who understand why a Stratavareous played is an organic experience unequaled by sampling & virtualization, who get it that live bluegrass played by their neighbors is more genuine than the ultra-processed popular fare (completed with subliminals) their peers only listen to.
There are also those who can-do - they can build a hot 318 cu V-8, they build their own houses (though sometimes tiny), they know how to forage for food and harvest game, they hike trails, brew beers, and can do things - not because their app tells them what and how to do things, but because they love life.
Now here is the BIGGEST reason Millennials often are like turds in the soup at work and in society. So many of them have lost their faith. They don't have religion or even a personal creed, and to op it off are conditioned to embrace each and every alternative creed or religion as equals to any birth traditions they grew up with. Too many are functionally rudderless in the spiritual, moral and religious sense.
Our generations haven't help the situation with the lies we tell youth to try and control them. A drink before age 21 is not the horror we tell them, actually it is no big deal if in a healthy context and with responsibility. Puffing a Doobie doesn't make them a monster, an obvious fact they see by their parents normal lives after toking.
These lies lead to the confusion of when can they actually trust us? When we tell them that smoking painkiller patches is evil and destroyer, they wonder are we trying to scare them again for social engineering reasons? We've cried wolf so many times we can't help save them from the real fires.
So yes we have some blame of the making of Pajama Boys and Social Justice Warriors (I just love the Warrior part being adopted by weaklings when compared to the real warriors in our world).
But in the end they need to know that they are 100% responsible for their final outcome. Period.