thoughts on our generation
Posted: 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.
---
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.
Please give me thoughts and criticisms. Pretty please.
---
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.
