This piece hit home. Gen Xers are expected to come up with a plan for the future (in under 15 minutes) without ever having been led with care. We are a "throw away generation" raised amid deindustrialization, deregulated schools, and collapsing civic systems. Add in that in the cultural imagination of our Boomer parents, GenX was often portrayed not as inheritors, but as threats. -the demon children in horror films, the bad seeds, underachievers, everything about our generation was "bad and contemptible". And now we’re expected to fix the ship, quietly, while pretending we didn’t watch it sink from the hull up.
I think that is the generational role Nomads are supposed to play. We break ties with the old way paradigms, and we provide no-nonsense get it done presence while the Hero's and Artists forge the new paradigm.
If we were saddled with too much mentorship and leadership from previous generations, we would be too tied to the previous paradigm to allow a new one to emerge. I love being a nomad.
This piece hit home. Gen Xers are expected to come up with a plan for the future (in under 15 minutes) without ever having been led with care. We are a "throw away generation" raised amid deindustrialization, deregulated schools, and collapsing civic systems. Add in that in the cultural imagination of our Boomer parents, GenX was often portrayed not as inheritors, but as threats. -the demon children in horror films, the bad seeds, underachievers, everything about our generation was "bad and contemptible". And now we’re expected to fix the ship, quietly, while pretending we didn’t watch it sink from the hull up.
Very well said. "Watching it sink" from the hull up indeed.
That interview… was pure brilliance.
Well done ol boy well done!
I think that is the generational role Nomads are supposed to play. We break ties with the old way paradigms, and we provide no-nonsense get it done presence while the Hero's and Artists forge the new paradigm.
If we were saddled with too much mentorship and leadership from previous generations, we would be too tied to the previous paradigm to allow a new one to emerge. I love being a nomad.