Grounded with nothing to stand on

I'm not entirely sure where my generation is headed. I guess I started thinking about having a generation seven or eight years ago when it was completely lost; of course, the 'net changed all that. We went from a bunch of burger-flippin' slackers to Instant Millionaires and New Media Hot Shots; all of this took about three seconds.

I'm not sure how to describe what it feels like to be a young adult sandwiched between attention-grabbing Baby Boomers and their (and our) center-of-the-universe children. To know that no matter what you do, the tone of your day will always be set by somebody else; to accept that as a given can be frustrating.

Those who bother to ask when our turn comes are faced with the sad knowledge that we got a little moment with the Grunge Movement (remember when Seattle was the hippest place on Earth?) and another one around 1998 with all that dot-com money (remember when Silicon Valley sounded like a good idea?)

Now... now I think we're supposed to be quiet working stiffs so the economy doesn't collapse. I think that's what we are for the most part. I know a couple of people in my general age group who went off to follow their dreams, and I think that's OK. When you have to choose between following some kind of creative road and earning a highly decent living working a not-that-challenging job in high tech...

Well, there's safety in numbers.

It's just that I'd hate to see us fade away without a trace, without letting posterity know that we worked hard and got things done because somebody had to; I'd hate for history to say nothing about us except that we didn't much care, because I don't think that's true.

It would be very cliched and Boomerish for me to say some of us do care, and that would misrepresent the way I see my generation: I think most of us care, but we've become very good at hiding that.

That just might explain a lot about us.

before - after