People sigh when they hear me spout forth on something that's on my mind and then they say 'something is seriously wrong with your generation…you have it all and yet you are all deeply unhappy" As the self appointed spokesperson for the group of people born after 1979, I hotly defend 'my generation' as we are collectively referred to and I wonder, if there some truth in what they are saying.
'Theirs' was a generation of contentment. Educated, upright, disciplined and restrained they shelved themselves and did what was expected to be done, I think the other word for it is 'mainstream'. While 'our' generation in turn is best described by one word - deviant!
But isn't that an evolutionary step?
Between the old world and the new, there is a nebulous twilight realm of transition. Living in this world is a tribe that was born into the old and are growing up with the new.
When I have children, they will in all probability be digitally documented and preserved in bits and bytes right from their first lusty cry as newborns. They will see themselves mirrored in camera LCDs and talk to their grandparents over skype. They will learn motor co-ordination by playing with a cell phone and probably leave me voice messages at age 3 to tell me about what they are up to. Compare that to Doordarshan and the once a week serial, the slow and momentous progression from the VCR to the VCD and eventually the DVD, the 286 processors to the 2 kilo laptops, and you will know that 'my generation' has walked a long path with admirable patience and endurance.
Nope! we are definitely not a generation that has it all. What we really are is a deluded bunch of guinea pigs for the digital revolution! While convincing ourselves that we are on the cutting edge of technology we are left grappling with the memories of a simple childhood that is often brought up only to tell us how little we had and how spoilt we are now 'cos we have so much more. Not because we asked for it but simply because a rapidly changing world simply thrust them upon us.
How many of us knew as fifth graders that we could grow up to be career backpackers, exhibition designers, wine and coffee tasters, game testers and colour forecasters? We weren't born with the promise of these choices, we jus' grew up unwittingly in a world that sprung a gazillion options on us the minute we showed faintest signs of decision-making ability.
Piano lessons or math tuition…Tennis classes or IIT classes…Hindi or French…and to top it off advice from all and sundry AND 'parental guidance' for good measure. Hey! How about giving us some credit for growing up in difficult times!
How are we as 10 year olds supposed to weigh the relative benefits of a future career in translation v/s being a dentist? And if you say, that's exactly why we're given advice, how are we as 10 or even 15 year olds expected to know the difference between objective advice and unfulfilled parental ambitions thrust on us? I couldn't tell the difference at 25 and I doubt if I will be any wiser at 35. But by then it probably won't matter anyway, cos I will be dispensing some advice of my own.
Twenty years back it was a little simpler, math, science, commerce or arts? Translated that meant, engineer, doctor, lawyer or wastrel? In an intolerant time that defined success in narrow parameters like the respectability quotient of a job, (if you don't know what I am talking about, ask your dad if he could have imagined being an alcohol taster for a living) and how many years you mulishly stuck to one job, choices were a precious few and decisions were easier to make. The right path or the wrong…failure or success…the academic or the entrepreneur…intellectual or plebian…
But meet the average specimen of my generation and you will find they are a little bit of everything. Sure, that means not much depth in any one area but little interest in a lot of areas made possible by living in a more tolerant age where being a gazzetted government officer at the age of 21 is not the Holy Grail of achievement. And yes, if you ask us what is the millennium's holy grail of achievement, we don't know yet. But we are looking. And a state of searching is by no means a state of contentment.
Walking the middle path between a world that has made material success so accessible and another world where new age gurus ask us to just 'BE', we search for careers, homes, hobbies, holidays, partners, love, acceptance, fulfillment and meaning. Unwilling to put ourselves on the backburner we refuse to give up today for the promise of tomorrow. And that's who we are.
As 50 year olds we may not sigh with resignation and say we sacrificed our dreams for our children, but then again we will have a different set of regrets that we don't of know of yet. We might never know the contentment that comes from stability but we'll know the joys of having lived it up every moment of our lives and being true to ourselves. In the end we are no happier or unhappier than any other generation in the history of mankind. We have just lived lives different from those before us, made different choices and know that after us there will be another generation, another quest, another grail, another set of cribs and another criteria for happiness. And hopefully we'll have become wiser enough not to look at them and say, 'you really have it all and yet something seems to be wrong with the lot of you!"
'Theirs' was a generation of contentment. Educated, upright, disciplined and restrained they shelved themselves and did what was expected to be done, I think the other word for it is 'mainstream'. While 'our' generation in turn is best described by one word - deviant!
But isn't that an evolutionary step?
Between the old world and the new, there is a nebulous twilight realm of transition. Living in this world is a tribe that was born into the old and are growing up with the new.
When I have children, they will in all probability be digitally documented and preserved in bits and bytes right from their first lusty cry as newborns. They will see themselves mirrored in camera LCDs and talk to their grandparents over skype. They will learn motor co-ordination by playing with a cell phone and probably leave me voice messages at age 3 to tell me about what they are up to. Compare that to Doordarshan and the once a week serial, the slow and momentous progression from the VCR to the VCD and eventually the DVD, the 286 processors to the 2 kilo laptops, and you will know that 'my generation' has walked a long path with admirable patience and endurance.
Nope! we are definitely not a generation that has it all. What we really are is a deluded bunch of guinea pigs for the digital revolution! While convincing ourselves that we are on the cutting edge of technology we are left grappling with the memories of a simple childhood that is often brought up only to tell us how little we had and how spoilt we are now 'cos we have so much more. Not because we asked for it but simply because a rapidly changing world simply thrust them upon us.
How many of us knew as fifth graders that we could grow up to be career backpackers, exhibition designers, wine and coffee tasters, game testers and colour forecasters? We weren't born with the promise of these choices, we jus' grew up unwittingly in a world that sprung a gazillion options on us the minute we showed faintest signs of decision-making ability.
Piano lessons or math tuition…Tennis classes or IIT classes…Hindi or French…and to top it off advice from all and sundry AND 'parental guidance' for good measure. Hey! How about giving us some credit for growing up in difficult times!
How are we as 10 year olds supposed to weigh the relative benefits of a future career in translation v/s being a dentist? And if you say, that's exactly why we're given advice, how are we as 10 or even 15 year olds expected to know the difference between objective advice and unfulfilled parental ambitions thrust on us? I couldn't tell the difference at 25 and I doubt if I will be any wiser at 35. But by then it probably won't matter anyway, cos I will be dispensing some advice of my own.
Twenty years back it was a little simpler, math, science, commerce or arts? Translated that meant, engineer, doctor, lawyer or wastrel? In an intolerant time that defined success in narrow parameters like the respectability quotient of a job, (if you don't know what I am talking about, ask your dad if he could have imagined being an alcohol taster for a living) and how many years you mulishly stuck to one job, choices were a precious few and decisions were easier to make. The right path or the wrong…failure or success…the academic or the entrepreneur…intellectual or plebian…
But meet the average specimen of my generation and you will find they are a little bit of everything. Sure, that means not much depth in any one area but little interest in a lot of areas made possible by living in a more tolerant age where being a gazzetted government officer at the age of 21 is not the Holy Grail of achievement. And yes, if you ask us what is the millennium's holy grail of achievement, we don't know yet. But we are looking. And a state of searching is by no means a state of contentment.
Walking the middle path between a world that has made material success so accessible and another world where new age gurus ask us to just 'BE', we search for careers, homes, hobbies, holidays, partners, love, acceptance, fulfillment and meaning. Unwilling to put ourselves on the backburner we refuse to give up today for the promise of tomorrow. And that's who we are.
As 50 year olds we may not sigh with resignation and say we sacrificed our dreams for our children, but then again we will have a different set of regrets that we don't of know of yet. We might never know the contentment that comes from stability but we'll know the joys of having lived it up every moment of our lives and being true to ourselves. In the end we are no happier or unhappier than any other generation in the history of mankind. We have just lived lives different from those before us, made different choices and know that after us there will be another generation, another quest, another grail, another set of cribs and another criteria for happiness. And hopefully we'll have become wiser enough not to look at them and say, 'you really have it all and yet something seems to be wrong with the lot of you!"
3 comments:
Chillu, you've managed 2 put in words what some of us just think! I can't help but remember one of your lines... "Is writting just a clearer way of deciphering what we are thinking?" or sumthing to that effect... Am glad you've started blogging sweetie. :)
P.S: Did I say I love the name:)
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