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thoughts on our generation

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thoughts on our generation

Postby joe_canadian » 6/9/2004, 4:23 pm

I didn't even like this thing, but apparently it's good and people like it, so I'll share it with you guys. I won a regional writing competition with it, so I like it now.

Please give me thoughts and criticisms. Pretty please. :puppyeyes:

---

Why Generation Y

We elude definition.

We have been born into trouble and raised eyebrows and whispered suspicions and wagging fingers. Monitored and dissected before we can speak, we are told of mistakes not to make.
“Do not make mistakes. Do not repeat these mistakes. Are you listening? Do not even think about it. Do not screw this up.” We are told this from the beginning.
We are run through the wheels of grand systems, fitted and pressed.
We are appropriated.
We are cookie dough.
We have shouldered the consequences of actions we never took and we march: under bombardment by well meaning threats and giggling media, under advice to never, ever do things we don’t understand. It rings in our ears as we walk in single file:
Do not.
Be not.
Fear.
We have been ushered into bright halls and are accosted at all sides. We do not yet know what is happening. We have covered our eyes with our hands and are blinking hard, but everything is blurred. There are fingers grasping and prodding and correcting and straightening, to the tune of a symphony of rules. They divide us a hundred-fold and scream in our ears. We wonder if they realize we can hear them but do not want what they are selling.
Many whats.
Many hows.
No whys.
We are expected to rebel, given channels and padding and product endorsements. We wonder what we are to rebel against. We have middle-class lives, white walled ambitions and authority figures encouraging smiling, empty angst. Within their boundaries, of course. Of course. We are to worships symbols of symbols of symbols of memories of what it felt like to hold something genuine. We ask for something more but are laughed off and given papers for our pleasure.
We want none of this.
We have dimmed the lights and see better: a parade of mannequins and jesters, clad in confetti and neon and all of it for sale. Pretenders and provokers, all of them visions of refined happiness. We see that they continue to not make sense. We have given up trying to decipher their codes, throwing our hands in the air. We will never speak their language. We will not speak their language.
We grin.
We leave the building: through the back exit into the most unfashionable of alleys. We know we are being chased and we confound at every turn. We recognize each other and run together. When they come looking we are not to be found. We plunge deeper and farther away from where we are encouraged to go. We are writing our own tablets and singing our own songs.
No categories.
No division.
We do not need them.
We do not need them.
They frown and ask for reasons. They want us to explain ourselves. We turn up the volume. We do not know our selves. We never had purpose to begin with, how are we to have one now? We know one thing only and have practiced it to an art:
We like this game.
Just because I am sexy, naked, a bassist, and sporting a top hat doesn't make me Duncan Coutts!
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Postby beautiful liar » 6/9/2004, 5:13 pm

amen! that was awesome! i think it accurately depicts the feelings of our generation: we are told what to do, who to be, how to rebel. we are isolated and uninvovled because of this. we have no common goal; we lead sheltered lives, embraced by safe conformity. there is no true struggle for us, so one is created. we live in a fragmented world, where everyone has a different issue to "fight" for, but all are endorsed by celebreties and packaged by corporations.

you have beautifully summerized the frustration many people feel.

and pointed out the key truth: no one wants to change it, because it's what we are used to, because it's comfortable, and because it's stable and secure.

bravo.
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Postby Random Name » 6/9/2004, 5:16 pm

Yeah. It rocks.


How come when she said it, it sounded so much better?
-Sarah

Goodbye you liar,
Well you sipped from the cup but you don't own up to anything
Then you think you will inspire
Take apart your head
(and I wish I could inspire)
Take apart your demons, then you add it to the list.

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Postby One-Eye » 6/9/2004, 6:03 pm

:bow:
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Postby Lando » 6/9/2004, 6:10 pm

Generation's arent needed. Unless everyone is inbreeding!
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Postby joe_canadian » 6/9/2004, 6:26 pm

baby_dracula wrote:amen! that was awesome! i think it accurately depicts the feelings of our generation: we are told what to do, who to be, how to rebel. we are isolated and uninvovled because of this. we have no common goal; we lead sheltered lives, embraced by safe conformity. there is no true struggle for us, so one is created. we live in a fragmented world, where everyone has a different issue to "fight" for, but all are endorsed by celebreties and packaged by corporations.

you have beautifully summerized the frustration many people feel.

and pointed out the key truth: no one wants to change it, because it's what we are used to, because it's comfortable, and because it's stable and secure.

bravo.


that was precisely what I was trying to express. :nod:
Just because I am sexy, naked, a bassist, and sporting a top hat doesn't make me Duncan Coutts!
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Postby beautiful liar » 6/9/2004, 7:09 pm

well you did an excellent job of expressing it :D
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Postby lemonphile4 » 6/9/2004, 10:06 pm

It reminds me of something an angst-ridden 14 year old would write if only they could write well.
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Postby gavtodd71 » 6/11/2004, 6:56 am

^ i could barly complete sentences at the age of 14....and my spelling well if you think its bad now....LOL
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Postby Bandalero » 7/16/2004, 12:24 am

:nod: outstanding. that is why we, the youth of this nation need to begin a political revolution. :D
Whenever death may surprise us,
let it be welcome
if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear
and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.


Nobody's gonna miss me, no tears will fall, no ones gonna weap, when i hit that road.
my boots are broken my brain is sore, fer keepin' up with thier little world, i got a heavy load.
gonna leave 'em all just like before, i'm big city bound, your always 17 in your hometown
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Postby Odio La Cabra » 7/16/2004, 9:11 am

you know i cant help thinking that some of us will make the same mistakes when we have kids....

a good friend of mine can write something like that. she did this whole political rebellion thing for history fair but they disqualified her and said that she couldent possibly have written it because she was 14 and it sounded like a seinor wrote it.
"there is nothing because there are no words with wich to think any other way than regurgitating slogans and propaganda that has been served to you by the government. people become human soundtracks. it prevents self expression and without words to express individual thoughts what becomes of a person? they are nothing but an extention of human power"-Yvette S.

One day we went to kindergarten and they never let us out...

cant sleep the clowns will eat me

We all miss the big daddy quick....

*Liz...R*
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