Ah, to be young and not quite privy to these insights yet ...
Proud National Tradition
The last time America waged prolonged war in a foreign land, the country’s
young generation had grown up in the shadow of the A-bomb. They were raised to
hurry up and live, to squeeze the most from each moment because the world could
blow up by lunchtime. They grew up with a deep urge to hustle and scratch – to
succeed – and that typically meant grabbing more than their fair share of the
world’s finite resources, perhaps unwittingly, back when there seemed no end to
nature’s riches.
At the same time, the future war protestors of the 1960s
were bred on vapors of change. Their parents had defeated ideologies of hatred
elsewhere and, painfully, they had begun that same struggle at home. The energy
of the Civil Rights struggle – a real cause, a genuine, though incomplete,
victory – conveyed the sense that everything could be changed for the better,
just as that young generation grew into adulthood. Surely they could steel
themselves to end an unjust war against the underprivileged in Asia,
where the underprivileged of America did the fighting and dying.
But everybody would have to join together.
Today, as the nation again sends its youth to die abroad,
the young generation has developed in the shadow of MTV, taught to believe that
the best way to experience the world is to watch it happen on a screen. They
gather only as solitary units, isolated, connected by two-dimensional images
and their kinship of knowledge about movie stars and rock icons and would-be
world-savers.
And they do exactly as they are taught. The young
generation of this new century inherits a proud National Consumer Tradition
that has become a frenzy of voraciousness. They are born to a culture that
makes heroes out of those with the most stuff, with a legacy that every great
cause ultimately sells out, and where value equals price.
Today’s youth are told to indulge most of their urges,
and not anymore so they might squeeze the very most from life while they yet
have vigor, but because what their nation needs most out of them as a
generation is not to organize, or to rally, or – God forbid – to vote. But to
buy stuff. To take part in the proud National Consumer Tradition.
Be Your Own Boss
Here is a nice little resource that might be able to help you get out of the rat race.
Hotel California
This is a nice lil ditty that somehow seems to be on topic ...