Generation Y, Generation Zero and beyond

Last time: in my last blog I waxed lyrical about what I believe defines my generation, Generation X. Now I take a look at Gen Y - and what I believe should be the names of the next generations set to rise after the Y's have had their day in the sun...

The 90's came and went, and the Naughties began. And then September 11, 2001 rolled around. Gen X-ers watched in horror as the giant towers fell.  Our generation had never witnessed such an awful cataclysm , although certainly plenty of horrors had occurred during our lifetimes. But this was something new – Vietnam happened before most of us were born, and World Wars I and II and Korea belonged to the Baby Boomers. But this was real-life horror for Generation X.

I must say that I have no idea how the members of Generation Y felt when this terrible day happened. I would like to know how they must have felt at the time, all of 8 to 10 years old. Maybe that's what informed their greater need for material security (which I discuss in greater detail below)?

Generation X proceeded to take to their new pulpit - the Internet - and pronounced this terrible event to be part of a massive conspiracy. Some even claimed it was an inside job, perpetrated by the U.S. itself to justify invading oil-rich Iraq. If this is true, then once again the so-called guardians of our freedom had just betrayed us on an unimaginable scale.

And this is the crux of the matter; in Generation X's lifetime, America has gone from being the cradle of modern democracy and saviour of the modern world, to a country that now appears to have no value for human life. Vietnam was the first early evidence of this;  we now have Iraq and Afghanistan to add to that list. Thanks to Wikileaks we can see first hand just how brutal, cold and callous these "guardians" have become. How much blood and tears must be shed to protect us from "evil". It makes you start to wonder who are the real bad guys.

And meanwhile behind the scenes, the materialistic machine rolls on. People work, people get money, people spend money. People accumulate stuff. The revelations of quantum physics appear largely forgotten – particularly by Generation Y. As I see it, Generation Y are like the new Baby Boomers – they have experienced unprecedented levels of material security, even more so than Gen X did. Generation Y have their computers, laptops, smart phones, Nintendos, Xboxes, iPhones, iPads. It’s become all about ”I” again with Generation Y. And although Gen X certainly embraced technology in our childhoods it was more in a spirit of fun and enjoyment, as opposed to obsession and must-have to fit in. 

I'll say it again because this is my main point: Generation Y are almost like a recapitulation of the Baby Boomers – they love their material things, they are close with their families, they are rabidly conformist to accepted society and they really don't step outside the box too far. They seem to crave social acceptance much more than we of Gen X did. Again - could this be a knock on effect of September 11? They unconsciously don't want to be seen as non-conformist, in fear of reprisals?

Also, I notice that they really don’t seem to take spirituality that seriously – neither organised, conventional religion nor the new age. They seem to have regressed in this regard back to a pre-Vietnam state. It's quite odd. I don’t know quite what happened there – maybe it’s because we, Gen X, couldn’t come up with anything to replace the system that was broken. Perhaps the simple answer is that Gen X has failed to give Gen Y a proper spiritual alternative to both materialism and conventional religion.

Or maybe, just maybe, Gen X is still waiting quietly in the background, watching; assimilating all the lessons of time and waiting for the last of the boomers to move out of positions of authority so we can finally have our changed world. As Gen X-er John Mayer says, we’re waiting on the world to change. We are just too sensitive to assert ourselves in a world of dog eat dog. We would rather wait until those that hold such a mentality are simply out of the way altogether so we can create our new world in a smooth and holistic fashion.

(It’s interesting to note that as I write this, all the old leaders of the Middle East and Africa – Gaddafi, Mubarak et al – are now being toppled from power. But given these were just U.S. approved puppets; whether this is ultimately a good thing is anyone’s guess.)

Gen X felt we had to tear down all the old structures due to society’s betrayal and REDEFINE what is good, what is wholesome, not based on material terms but on what is good for both the spirit AND the body. The main reason for this is that while our parents lauded themselves for providing us all the material benefits, often times the emotional element was completely lacking. There was a void of empathy, understanding, compassion – and all from a society that claimed to be Christian!! Parents would just not want to know if we came up to them with an emotional need, a need to be heard and understood.

In fact that’s all we wanted – as Gen X-ers we had so many feelings inside, we just needed to let them be heard and to have some kindness shown to us. But that was just too much for most baby boomer parents (but to their credit, not all). I think that from their perspective they had lived through the tough times of war and other hardships so what were we new ones complaining about! What they failed to understand is that compassion is not something you discard because it doesn’t make any money – it’s essential for building a loving and trusting connection with your family.

So Gen X-ers, having been largely denied this deep understanding in our families, turned as a result to friends. Unlike Gen Y, we know that friends can be more like family than your "real" family. In fact, Gen X-ers often find that friends are more understanding, more willing to have a laugh and treat each other with compassion and respect, and a heck of a lot more fun and fulfilling to be around. For Gen X-ers, friends facilitated the expansion and emergence of your fuller being, your deeper persona. (Again, there's that spiritual need to grow and develop, and be heard.) BB parents on the other hand would often not even look on you as a rational, thinking being; the attitude was often well what do you know you’re just a stupid kid! What a contrast to today’s kids, who are often more intelligent than their parents!

What’s amazing to me though is that the boomer generation seems to have a split personality. On the one hand you have the salt of the earth types (such as my parents) who typify what I’ve been saying, but then members of that same generation are my favourite musicians and rock groups, that are all made up of baby boomers!! Incredibly, the music of Pink Floyd in particular, who by the way are now all in their sixties, might well be said to constitute a Gen X manifesto! “We don’t need no education”! So I think it can be said that the seeds of Gen X were planted in the baby boomers, and the ideas they seeded came into bloom with the X’ers.

I think the main issue I have with Gen Y is that they have fallen back on relying on the old means of survival, on the old clapped out system that has proved that it doesn’t work and is long overdue to be replaced. But maybe that was a natural reaction to my generation’s strong idealism – we did lack a certain practicality in the application of our ideals. But just as Gen Y are anchoring the old world, so Gen X are working hard to anchor the incoming new world. We have had to overcome a lot – we were the first generation to really confront a lot of horrifying issues, from the Cold War global nuclear stand-off to Middle Eastern terrorism to 9/11 to U.S. government brutality and mind control and the looming GM and superbug crisis. We Gen X-ers have our plates absolutely full, and in the face of such a world we know something needs to change and change soon. Gen Y probably quite naturally has retreated from all this wearying and stressful confrontation back into the comforting (and illusory) materiality of the baby boomers, but I really believe that the next two generations will move things irrevocably forward.

The Coming of Generation Zero and Generation Wow!

The children that are coming after Generation Y, born 1994 to 2008, appear to have a maturity beyond their tender years; they seem far more intelligent than Gen X was at that age, far more outward looking and really amazing in their comprehension, self expression and overall way of being. They seem to be a fantastic blend of the idealism of Gen X and the practicality of Gen Y – in fact they seem to live by an inspired practicality! So I think I’ll call them Generation Wow! You see them all the time on TV, child prodigies who are not only brilliant but practical - perhaps they will be a fusion of the best of Generation X and Generation Y.

I have also created a new term for the generation being born now - the children being born from  2008 through to 2020. I call them Generation Zero, because I believe they represent a fresh new start.  They will build a more holistic world based on the achievements of the incredible new generation that are succeeding Gen Y.

As Generation Zero will come after Generation Wow, they will most likely reap the benefits of the generation before them and be fully able to express their spiritual gifts. Generation Zero will grow up in a new climate of tolerance and acceptance, and even perhaps of increased spiritual awareness. It is my hope that it will be this generation that changes the world once and for all. Maybe Generation Zero will be the third and final "wave of hippies" who will at last achieve the longed-for new age?

What is Generation X (part 1)

In some more of my musings, I’ve been wrestling lately with the notion of what exactly is "Generation X"? What do I, as a supposed member of this generational group, believe defines being a Gen X-er? What did/does Generation X stand for if anything, and where do those ideals stand today, in the face of the rise of Generation Y?

Let’s start with some (Australian pop-cultural) context. Generation X had 80's music: Duran Duran, Pseudo Echo, Howard Jones, Men At Work, the Police, Sting, The Bangles, and right at the end of the decade, we had the first rap and R&B artists emerging, such as MC Hammer and Salt N' Pepa.

We were the generation that grew up with such cartoons as Rainbow Brite, the Smurfs, Voltron, Battle of the Planets (aka G-Force), Astroboy, Kimba the White Lion – all pre-CGI
animations. All these cartoons had a strongly emotional core.

We had hand held Nintendo games – and we were the first generation in history to have access to such computerised personal entertainment. We witnessed firsthand the rise of the personal computer, of computer gaming - and thus Gen X became the first computer game addicts. On the drug front many of us were into pot, while others of us used speed and E. For this and other reasons we earned the title of the "slacker" generation.

But music was our true salvation. In our late teens and twenties (in the early 1990's) we would smoke pot, eat pizza and listen to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Skid Row - any music that reflected how we felt inside. In a way we were like the "second wave" of hippies – we were highly emotionally driven, and we would rejoice in “deep and meaningfuls”; chance conversations with a kindred spirit that would give a feeling of euphoria (no drugs required) born from mutual understanding, inspiration and upliftment.

We then looked at the world so beloved by our baby-boomer parents - one with racism, prejudice against gays, distrust of the unfamiliar, supported war against foreign countries, and we decided it was wrong. As far as we were concerned, the system that had spectacularly provided unprecedented levels of material comfort for our parents, had now become oppressive, a relentless monster bent on destroying the environment and persecuting anyone who was a free thinker or who was somehow "different".

And so we shunned materialism and lived like the 60's hippies did – in bedsits, share houses and campervans. We were the first generation to really begin to travel en masse while we were young - both overseas and at home.

We also liked a lot of the music that hippies did, as thanks to another new marvel of technology - CDs - we were getting new, remastered versions of classic 60's and 70's albums from artists like Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and others.

Gen X read books about quantum physics – the idea that as is now postulated by science, it is your mind that shapes your reality. Several decades after Einsten’s initial discoveries, we were now realising that matter was energy, energy was matter, and that truly they were interchangeable. And thought, as a form of energy, had the power to affect the physical world.

To many of us this seemed exactly what the Star Wars movies were talking about when they referred to something called "the Force".

We realised that spirituality and science could coincide again, that science could finally find in spirituality the unified field theory it had searched for so long. We also saw that religion no longer served the deepest most urgent needs of the people. Neither for that matter did any of the institutions of society – government, finance, the armed forces. All had failed; all had betrayed the ideals on which society was supposedly based. And the most stark evidence that society had failed during the 80’s was the ever present threat of nuclear war.

In fact it was only when President Reagan made approaches to his Soviet counterpart, after having brought the entire world to the very brink of disaster, that we even actually saw what a Russian looked like. Until then I had never seen one on TV. This was the days before mobile phones, before digital cameras, before Twitter, before Facebook, before Google Earth, Google maps and Myspace. No one knew what the Russians were like, and the media had somehow brainwashed us into thinking they were hideous aliens. I certainly thought that Russians were evil monsters. No, really. To see they actually looked like us – human beings – was mind blowing.

Sting's 1985 song, "Russians", summed up this feeling exactly. Until then we didn't even know if the Russians had any emotions like us, any feelings of compassion, remorse, love, anxiety. Sting asked the question, do the Russians love their children, too? If so, then maybe, just maybe, nuclear war can be averted after all.

And so faced with such alterations to our perceptions of reality, Gen X were arguably the first generation truly to absorb the idea that society was shonky: that the media and government and the church were nothing but purveyors of lies. Society bashing became a pastime, a
chief topic of conversation – the very word “society” was spoken with distaste.

Perhaps one of the greatest examples of Gen X - and its ultimate failure - was the man whose life was portrayed in the film Into the Wild

In other words, Generation X hated society - but we had not figured out what to replace it with. Like the rock and rollers and the hippies of the 50's and 60's we tried using music, but the corporate machine had long taken over this arena. There was no hope to be found there, although for a brief time Jeff Buckley tried his damndest to capture that idealism. Jeff offered us all a brief glimmer of hope and glory – only to drown in a Mississippi river, along with our hopes. Another example of this is Kurt Cobain – again, a sensitive new man, too isolated in his head for his own good. In the end he decided his head was too small a place to live in.

The character of Neo in The Matrix (1999) is possibly the apotheosis of the Gen X-er. Here is a sensitive character, hooked on computers, who doesn’t feel he fits in to society, that society and even reality itself is illusory, who doesn’t conform at this conventional job, who is restlessly searching for something but doesn’t know exactly what it is. And not only does he
find what he is searching for but he learns the true nature of reality – AND he transcends it.

And that, in a nutshell, is probably the defining quest of Generation X.

It's interesting to note that again, this is what the hippies tried to do - and they also failed. Or maybe they just planted the seeds which we, Generation X, further nurtured in ourselves. It’s also instructive to note that Neo sacrifices himself to save society – with most Gen X-ers probably feeling they have had to sacrifice their identities in some way to get by in society.

Next in Part 2: September 11, the rise of Gen Y - and Generation Wow! (No, not World of Warcraft...)