Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw wrote a book in the 90's by this very name. It described the generation of people who grew up in the great depression and went on to fight in world war II. These are most likely your grandparents. As your parents are classified as being Baby Boomers, your older cousins are members of generation X...and we are generation Y.

Reading about the trends that go along with every generation are very interesting. For example those who are members of the greatest generation were selfless and gave back to their country without thinking twice. The women bravely defended the home front by going to work and waiting patiently for their men to come home. Ted Williams and JFK were members of this generation, and this is described as the group that made America great...so says Mr. Brokaw.

While it is incredibly badass that people like Ted Williams took a little vacation from baseball to go kill the shit out of some Germans in the mid 40's. I would argue that my generation's frivolous spending, sense of entitlement, and affinity for partying purely encapsulates the American Dream.

Being born an American is like putting all of your money on the 0 on a roulette board and letting your money ride for 10 rounds. Your chances are extremely slim. In fact, betting on being born a poor Indian slum dog is like the red slots, about a 50% shot. The other 50% would have you born as one of the Chinese offstring that is slaughtered to avoid excessive governmental taxation. What I am saying is being born an American automatically makes you a stud. Moreover, there are plenty of Americans who weren't afforded the luxuries of a private school education, a hundred thousand dollar wardrobe and weekly sailing lessons growing up. The top .000000001% is what you are my friend! The average human probably doesn't even have a passport, let alone stamps on it? So why am I going on this lengthy tirade about how lucky you are to be you? Because generation Y has embraced this. They party every day and throw their egos around like a Viking and his club.

And the people in my generation typically have good jobs because of their father's golfing foursomes and no one works particularly hard. Because of the rapidly increasing dynamic world that is technology, someone who has grown up during the boom will always have a leg up on their older brethren. Selfishness has reached an all time high which would have Ayn Rand turning in her grave, in a good way.

Some may say that Generation Y is everything that is wrong with America, I claim that we are the greatest by default. We're going to end up a bit like Clinton, because of the efforts of those that ame before us we will just stumble upon the answers. When some slacker born in the 80's cures AIDS, Cancer, Diabetes and Swine Flu in one fell swoop ten years from now...I hypothesize that we as a whole will be forgiven for our liver destroying antics and worldwide apathy.

So cheers to you twentysomethings of the country...continue your tomfoolery and nonsense past a socially acceptable age and celebrate that you weren't born in a Romanian sewer, and have an ironic laugh that one day you will be remembered as the "Greatest Generation."

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