How many people pursue what they dreamt of when they are young? How many people settle for something less? The older you get the more cynical this world can make you. The question dwells, as our fantasies of the world are torn down one by one, does the world tear down our idea of a perfect world?
The first thought many older readers will have is to take issue with me calling it "perfect" - beginning a tirade into a dissection of the idea that a perfect world can exist but by doing that aren't you just confirming the idea that the world has made you cynical? There's a fine line to be drawn between generational interpretations of one another. The older you get the more you begin to realise that younger generations are ridiculed as naieve, and on the obverse when you are young and optimistic you think of older generations as cynical and lacking vision.
How much truth to these criticisms is there? If you take a step back from both views and look at them from an objective point of view there are a few things that can be deduced. Primarily that the more you endure within a given environment the more you adapt to it, likewise the longer you are exposed to a lie the more you begin to believe it. There is some validity to the judgement that those who are older and hold a given view, do so not because of any evidence but simply because it's what they have always known and what they have always believed. Add in cognitive bias and you end up with an individual who looks for and remembers everything that cements their belief. Two people can go through life both expecting very different things and end up at the other side having gone through the exact same experiences with different opinions of what they endured.
On the other side of this generational divide, secondarily, you have a generation filled with the belief that they can do things differently and that they can change the world. Is it fair for older generations to say they can't? After all just because you did not manage to do it does not mean they won't. You had your chance, and you failed, so why stand in the way of the next generation having their chance? The more you assert the idea that they must do what you say the more you reinforce the same barriers that prevented you from ever making a difference - you have become the barrier to change that you once fought against - as the rebels would say, you have become the establishment.
Right now the world is in a very tumultuous state, and arguably that is being caused by something which we as a race are experiencing for the first time - a tripartite generational divide. 50 to 100 years ago there was a clear distinction between young and old - not least for the fact that life expectancies were shorter. These two sides existed at odds with each other and were top heavy - the older generation outnumbered the young. That created a system we live in today where age equates authority; you can see this from the large numbers of politicians who are quite old, and the specific example that to be President of the United States you have to be at least 35 years old. That system worked for a world that was split in two, it had it's problems but it worked for the simple reason that you would always eventually have "your time" when it would be your turn.
The world today is filled with people who live much longer, and it is filled with 3 distinct generations:
The "Pre-tech" generation that lived before the advent of the Internet or to be more precise the world wide web. "When I was young we didn't have Internet"
The "Intra-tech" generation who grew up on the fringe who grew with technology and experienced the world before and the world after. "When I was young we had to use dial-up Internet and downloading a Movie would take days"
The "Post-tech" generation who grew up in the world we now live in. "The iPhone was released before I was born"
These three generations have distinct attitudes to the world. The problem is the middle generation is the largest, because of the "baby boom" that the top generation created after the second world war. The birth rate of most of the developed world is falling. The number of people being born to the youngest generation is significantly lower than the generation that preceded them, but it matches the one before. The oldest generation still holds power however, despite the fact it is in the minority now, it still rules, and that power is largely due to the fact the middle is responsible for giving them it.
In essence the oldest metaphorically represents 30%, the middle represents 40%, and the youngest represents the final 30%. The problem here is that despite the middle being the largest, the old guard still holds power and it is the top 30% that rules. As that top 30% dwindles, the bottom 30% grows and the 40% remains constant. The end point of this transition is once again a divide of two generations, with the middle being the new top with 40% and the bottom being the remaining 60%.
In recent years many key events have been slowly changing the opinion of those in the middle. Successive financial disasters and efforts to fuck over future generations has slowly eroded their loyalty. The problem that arises now is that the middle wants to rule, but they aren't a majority, the other two generations combined outnumber them and always will. For the first time the fact three generational levels exist diminishes their capacity to seize that control. This middle generation will be the "lost generation" that never sees power and never has a government that ever represented them.
So we are brought back to the original question. How many people still chase the world they dreamt of, and how many have settled? The oldest generation has decidedly settled, and the youngest generation decidedly hasn't. Those in the middle now pose a problem because they must decide which generation they want to back. The middle must now accept they will never have control and never have the power that those before them had. They must decide whether to back that older generation now in an attempt to preserve a world that they never wanted to live in when they were young, or side with the younger generation, who have a new vision of the world that isn't the one they dreamt of either. The question remains, have you given up on the world and settled? Have you reached the cynical point where you don't believe the world can or will ever change, or do you still believe change is possible? Your answer will tell you which generation you should be siding with.
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