Let ‘em Have it

The young. The future. Let the young have the future.

Just because the healthcare system (if you can afford it) feels it has a duty to keep us going forever, and just because all of us think we’re still under 30 and therefore are eternally trustworthy, and just because we can remember the lyrics of every song that came out in the 60’s, and just because we think we’re still qualified to keep going forever until before long we have a President in his (yes, still “his”) 90’s …

We really ought to give up. Let ‘em have it. See what they do with it.

I used to be into this empower the young thing. Like they need it. Like I have anything to offer. Good intentions maybe, like that’s going to help. We got this ancient-wisdom-of-the-elders thing from… well, ancient elders.  Okay, so we’re going to help the world by teaching the young how to keep doing everything that has never worked since the elders have been hanging around antiquity…

Brilliant.

“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’”

That’s one of our 60’s anthems, right there. Doesn’t apply to us now that we think we’ve still got some ancient wisdom left in our ancient brains.

It’s time to give it up, people.

We can’t see the future. Our reading glasses don’t help.

It’s time to give it up.

Yeah, so Boomers think the Millennials and Gen Z and Gen A and who-knows-who seem clueless, so what’s the point? Like we’re not? Like everybody these days isn’t?

The Nutcase Party institutionalized cluelessness into the USA’s national identity. Only took ‘em five years –  amazing what you can do when you have the perfect leader. Covid came and probably won’t go, thanks to the Nutcase Antivaxxer Party, but the once and future cluelessness pandemic has settled in for the duration — unless you live in New Zealand, where they seriously have their shit together thanks in large part to a female prime minister who’s 41, which counts as young compared to the old-timer celebrity ballgame that runs the USA. Or you could live in Finland, where the female leadership logs in at a cool 35, which is even better, considering they are perennial winners of the United Nation’s happiest country game, but damn it’s cold up there.

My generation has a proven record of meaning well and always getting it wrong while loudly proclaiming that this is it, no I mean it, this is the real deal this time. By now it’s clear that we can’t lead anybody into anything worth having , unless you count endless wars and obscene wealth concentration and… okay, we all know the list… how about we don’t? Being able to recite it doesn’t mean we can do anything about it.

What got us here sucks. If we try to use it to take us into the future it’s going to suck some more.

We need a mass retirement. A mass quit. A mass go to a Stones concert where you can’t harm the rest of us, and be sure to stay until they play Satisfaction. A mass get out the new one if you can’t lend your hand.

We can’t lead anybody into the future because we can’t lead ourselves into it. We don’t have the brain bandwidth. We can’t think about it because we grew up before computers. We can’t go there for all kinds of reasons it would take way too long to list, but mostly because we’re old, we have old brains and old ideas, and mostliest of all the future doesn’t belong to us.

So how about we sit down and quit pretending it does.

Just because the Stones will tour until they’re a hundred (R.I.P., Charlie) doesn’t mean the rest of us should. Time for us to quit trashing the future so nobody else can have it. Forget that ancient elder schtick. We had our chance, we took our shot, we made this mess. Time for us to drink our veggie energy drinks and run marathons to prove we’ve still got it in us and generally stay out of the way while the people who own the future get busy creating it.

Deal?

I know, I’m wasting my time writing and yours reading.

We’re doomed. The Apocalypse is upon us. The ship is not just going down, it’s almost to the seabed already.

No, I can’t explain why we’re still breathing then. I’m clueless, remember?

What do you say we go rearrange some deck chairs?