Another Way

I don't have many friends who are the same age as me; most of my friends are either five years older or five years younger give or take a few.  How that came to be, I am not so sure.  In terms of my own age, most people you expect to fit that descriptor tend to be people you met in school; my experience of education for the most part was one of misery and for a time, self imposed isolation.  I don't regret that choice because I know the anxiety I had to overcome in order to get through education in the first place would have been made worse with social pressure added on top, something which I don't deal with quite so well.  I've alluded to some of these problems in my writing but I've never outright discussed them in depth and I'm still not willing to do that right now.  Nevertheless, in recent weeks there have been a lot of events happening particularly on social media that are reminding me of my actual age.

I'm becoming more aware of the distance that is growing between me and the people that are older than me.  I'm 31 years old right now but for the most part I'm not in the head space that other people reached by this age, whether that is good or bad is a debate we can have another time, for now all that is relevant is that the way I see the world is starting to diverge from the people who are older than me who I have engaged with for many years.  There is a Tracy Ullman Sketch about a 'Woke Support Group' and one of the throwaway jokes from the whole scene is a line that says "...by the time you hit your thirties most of you will be massively right wing anyway" - joking aside, I think there's a ring of truth in that remark, as I've grown I've noticed the people around me shift their political opinions further and further to the right and I'm not comfortable with that.  This goes beyond difference of opinion, I've noticed more and more that as people age they are less and less likely to consider the possibility they might be wrong.

I'm not a conservative when it comes to issues of social conscience, I wouldn't exactly call myself liberal either, my view point has more or less remained the same throughout my life, that is, do what you want, just don't make me do it.  There are exceptions to that mentality, there always are, no belief can be held in an extreme without being thrown open to exploitation.  Moderation is the only way to retain control and the freedom to choose and the freedom to contradict yourself.  That last point seems to be where most people fall down.  When you are younger it is often the case that you don't realise you contradict yourself until you're put in the position where you have to make a conflicting choice.  With age however the awareness of self contradiction grows but the willingness to admit it seems to be fleeting, something that is only entertained briefly before people start to abandon it in favour of denial.  They then grow older and hold beliefs that are contradictory but don't want that to be pointed out to them.

There's something to be said about discourse and whether there is an appetite for it that is slowly lost with age.  I still hold onto the idea that even the things I believe with great passion are things that could completely change if a persuasive argument was made to the contrary.  I'm becoming too aware of the doubling down that people do with age and it's reaching a point now where the divergence has grown wider than I can tolerate.

On the flip side, I am acutely aware of resistance - I choose to use that word rather than rebellion because I never really accepted the idea of youth being synonymous with being rebellious.  Resistance on the other hand captures quite aptly what is happening on the other side of this generational divide.  Younger people as they always have are growing up wide eyed seeing the world for what it is, seeing everything wrong with it, and crucially, wanting to change it, or 'fix' it.  Whilst I admire that sentiment, it takes an awful lot of energy to devote yourself to those causes and it's energy that is slowly reduced in capacity with age.  Complacency with the status quo that comes with age is not always about benefiting from the existing system because I sure as Hell don't benefit from it, no, most of the complacency I chalk up to exhaustion with the endless war you fight when you choose to fight against that system.  Battles are often worth fighting, small victories and ground that is gained helps through attrition, but to fight every battle isn't possible, guidance and coordination is necessary, leadership is essential to success.  Spontaneous cooperative action whilst effective in disrupting the status quo, rarely manages to rewire the underlying infrastructure.  When the action ceases, the old order is restored.

This isn't going to make sense to many people, and that's the problem.  The generation that is caught in the middle of these two sides is one that I feel is becoming increasingly disconnected from the world.  If you can relate to this post then the chances are you are part of that generation - there will be exceptions of course, there always are.  I wrote before about the nature of the Phoenix and how conflicts like this inevitably lead to both sides collapsing and the centre ground emerging once more from the ashes to rebuild.  When I wrote that post, my mind mainly focused on politics but I've realised it goes much further than the world of politics, it runs deeper, into the veins of culture itself.  With age you start to notice a new vernacular emerge, tentatively at first but with time it grows until both generations speak almost a completely different language to one another.  I'm becoming more aware of the language divide that has emerged and it's making me realise that at this point in life most people make a choice.

The choice you're presented with at this point in your life is which side do you want to be part of more.  I guess this is what most people would call a mid-life crisis, where stereotypically you would run out and try and do a bunch of things you perceive as youthful and impulsive if the choice you make is to try and be part of that generation.  That does make you realise though that whilst that is the stereotype of a mid-life crisis, on the opposite side traditionally there would be people who chose the other option and essentially accelerated their perceived age to catch up with the generation above.

That's what used to happen at least, going from what I can tell from popular culture.  The problem with this conversation is that it is for the most part anecdotal and since it revolves around issues of mental health and thought processes it's not something that's easy to collate as traditionally this conversation was censured by stigma.  That's changing however which is something to be positive about at least.

There is of course the question that arises from this notion of choice, that is, what if you don't want to choose?  What if you recognise the distinction between both generations but decide that you don't want to be part of either one entirely but wish to continue to bridge the gap?  Whilst that is a possibility, the trouble with that choice is that you are essentially straddling two moving vehicles that are slowly drifting apart and sooner or later you won't be able to reach both at the same time.  I think when this choice was thought about traditionally most people chose a side out of fear of being left behind.  They wanted to keep moving so they chose one of the vehicles rather than choosing the ground below.  That choice is the one I am entertaining now.  I know that if I make that choice then I will move slower than either side, being forced to walk instead of being driven.  The comfort and assurance of that choice, knowing where you stand and being sure of your footing as you walk forward is what appeals most.  The unknown element however is the question of where that path would lead if you choose to walk it. 

Where do people go and what do they do when they choose to bow out of the fray?  Do they even go anywhere at all or do they just stand and watch?  What do you do when you know how fucked up the world is and know you don't want to be part of it?  I know the choice that others made in the past was that of ending it all, I've lost people to suicide before and I've been in that mentality myself in the past but if that's not the choice you want to make and neither is the alternative, what do you do?  I know I could choose to die but I don't want to, I know how fucked up this world is and I don't want to be part of it, so what is the third option?