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this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Invisibility is the defining characteristic of Generation X.
When Douglas Coupland popularized the term in his novel of the same name, that was an awful lot of the point. Generation X was the generation that just sort of fell through the cracks, lost in the shadow of the baby boomers.
Over the years, we've just adapted to it, and really, at this point, it's sort of nice to be forgotten. We can just sit on the sidelines, munching on popcorn, offering up a bit of snidely cynical commentary and reminiscing about great music, great times and great hair.
How many Xers do you know that didn't have kids? I looked back at my friends circle from HS and a surprising amount were child -free, myself included.
There's kind of a comforting selfish nihilism at work for me. I feel like I'm going to be part of the last generation that got most of what they expected, which when compared to the average human existence at any point in history is nothing short of lavish. That said, I'm not sure I want to be elderly during the apocalypse, so I'm trying to thread the needle and die right when shit gets ugly.
At the end of the day if this is my only bite at the apple then fuck yes, I got mine. No regrets.
Yes - I know lots of childless genXers, including myself.
I think we were the first generation to see the bullshit fairly clearly, but we weren't even close to being in a position to do anything about it.
The earlier generations generally didn't see it, and the boomers only saw parts of it - they were too easily distracted by their own greed and self-indulgence. Stuck in the shadows as we were, and growing up right in the middle of it - in the world after the Kennedy/King assassinations and Vietnam and Watergate and OPEC and stagflation and Iran/Contra and on and on and on - we couldn't really miss it. But we've never had any real influence (other than our brief but notable time at the vanguard of music, art and fashion), so it mostly just left us sort of cynical and detached. It's fallen to the later generations to get fired up enough to maybe do something about it.
And yeah - my plan too has long been to mostly keep a low profile, try to share a bit of what hopefully amounts to wisdom, then slip off-stage before the inevitable shit hits the inevitable fan.