IF
YOU CAN remember what life was like before R.E.M.—and can identify a
Care Bear but sure as hell never went to bed with one—consider yourself
an inducted member of Generation X. Our generation is one that’s always
been defined by the best and worst of culture, with MTV,
,
and the Apple II on one end of the spectrum and rampant divorce, nukes,
and AIDS on the other. As kids, we were left to play independently
while marriages crumbled in the background. As teens, we were
unimpressed by, but close friends with, the REAL real world. And now as
grown-ups, most of us have broken through the other side of angst, like
Dee Snider through a dining room door, and are, simply and deservedly,
downright content.
There’s always speculation about why certain
generations are happier than others. And while it might have something
to do with the lack of boy bands in your particular age range, how
contentment came to pass for those born roughly between 1962 and 1977 is
no accident. It’s the reward for hard-working indifference. It’s what
happens when resentment turns into resilience and you step out into
adulthood with no one really watching. And it’s a nice landing spot,
this hammock of “good enough” that’s sandwiched between the Boomers’
“More, more, more!” and the Millennials’ “Me, me, me!”
Generation
Xers have always suspected, and now know for sure, that there’s only so
much you can expect out of life before you fall prey to chronic
dissatisfaction. Not to mention, when you’ve grown up knowing there’s a
big red button that can be pushed to end the world (and all of your toys
were choking hazards), you tend approach things with equal parts
bitterness and ballsiness. The love child of which is blitheness.
So. How did Gen X end up so Zen? Allow me to paint in broad strokes and offer up these five theories:
I
got my first job at 16, running errands in a 1978 Wagoneer that had a
rusted hole in its floor and required pliers to operate the windshield
wipers. My employer was a tiny graphic arts and advertising firm, in the
days when things were still done with X-Acto knives and Liquid Paper,
and when I wasn’t running across town for tacos to feed the
fresh-from-college designers, I spent most of my day either cleaning the
toilets or in a darkroom developing PMTs (the equivalent today of a
daguerreotype).
I liked my job,
a lot, particularly working alongside employees that I now realize were the first Gen Xers. But I didn’t like my job because of
what I was doing, rather
how I
got to go about doing it. I’d grown up watching my parents’ generation
punch the clock, and—rich or poor, surgeon or salesman—they all seemed
dour about their predicaments. There was a certain paper-pushing,
nose-to-the-grindstone mentality about it all, likely because they
worked under the shadow of 1980s fortune.
But this job was
different from any I’d seen before. We wore jeans. We piped in Hall
& Oates. We told a lot of jokes while cranking out a lot of
assignments. The designers weren’t aggrieved by the concept of labor.
Rather, they wore sneakers and Walkmans, they drove crappy little Hondas
that rattled with old cans of Tab, and they all talked of things—were
defined by
things—other than the work before them. Music and friends, hiking and
television, babies and dogs and tacos. I remember thinking: now this is
what work should be like: something you don’t loathe or love, but like
well enough.
Gen X had witnessed what its parents had done in the
name of Mercedes or making ends meet (depending on economic class), and
we pledged to set our sights on careers that we weren’t beholden to. We
wanted jobs that helped us to live but weren’t life itself.
Today,
in the same way the Boomers were driven by fortune, the Ys seem awfully
enamored of fame. And who can blame them? They grew up with both the
Oprah mantra of “finding your passion” and more child stars than you
could shake a pageant baton at. For them,
The Hills are very much alive, and if they can’t be famous, they’d at least like a dream job.
We
Gen X kids didn’t have this sort of temptation. We fantasized about
becoming Flash Gordon or Pat Benatar, but adults told us, and rightfully
so, that our fantasies were nothing more than pipe dreams. Thus, we
never clamored for a spot on a Nickelodeon show; we just hung our
posters of Bo Derek and Larry Bird and wished them well in their
alternate realities. Then we put on our pirate hats, got in our Buick
LeSabres, and headed to work at All-American Burger.
So now, here we Gen Xers are, more or less in our 40s, with neither fame nor fortune, just the freedom that comes with
what we do being quite different from
who we are.
“Hey, Joe. How’s work?”
“Doesn’t suck.”
“That’s great.”
~
2. We Can Warm a Bench
I
never got a medal or a letter in sports. Why? I didn’t deserve one. If
you go find the basketball and soccer benches from my youth, they are
still as warm as toast and as worn as Colosseum marble from my
expendable ass. I was always good enough to make the teams I tried out
for, but only good enough to be put IN the game if someone got
decapitated.
I recall one fifth-grade basketball game where the
clock stopped with three seconds remaining. I had yet to go in, but
Coach saw his chance. “Martin!” he yelled, motioning to the court. I
threw off my sweats, ran beneath the basket, listened to the buzzer
blare before the opposing team could even complete a single pass, and
voila: GAME OVER. I think I logged 14 seconds that season. Which is actually pretty good considering no one was beheaded.
Back
when I was young, an athletic season either ended abruptly, without
fanfare, or the Phys Ed staff threw some crappy banquet with paper bowls
and food service-chili where the superior athletes got a lousy plaque.
We had one of these banquets once for my seventh grade soccer team. I
think it was the first time all season the parents actually showed up. I
recall hearing a bunch of dads snort: “My kid played soccer?” And then
they all laughed and stayed inside to smoke.
If you tell this
story to a Millennial, they think it’s sad. “But my dad came to EVERY
game,” they gasp. “AND every practice. AND he brought his zoom lens.” If
you tell this to a Generation Xer, they stare and say: “You had a dad?”
(I don’t know what happens if you tell this to a Boomer. Probably: “Ahh, yes. Smoking.”)
My
son currently has a Nintendo 3DS. This little machine spews out more
verbal encouragement and gold redemption coins and psychological
incentive in 30 minutes than my generation heard in 15 years. Sports of
the 70s and early 80s were just like the arcade games of the same era.
You got a couple of chances at an event that was unforgiving and hard to
master. And if you lost, you lost. GAME OVER. Now move out of the way,
there’s a pedophile with a roll of quarters who’s been waiting to play.
~
3. We Age Gracefully
If
you drive through a college campus these days, you’re not going to find
a single female who’s wearing Doc Martens or engulfed by a prairie
dress or schlepping along in a pair of men’s Umbros. Instead, you’re
going to see a bunch of
very pretty young women, in various stages of undress, who may have been given a breast enlargement,
from Daddy no less, as a high school graduation present.
Something
similar holds true for the Boomer women; once free-loving hippies or
poodle-skirt sweethearts, these 60-something women are now permanent
passengers on the Botox train. Pumped up with collagen and fillers, this
wrinkle-free group of gals has rendered themselves almost fully
recyclable in the PET bin.
“Pardon me. Is that a hot dog under your nose?”
“No, that’s my upper lip.”
Gen
X is shyer about bodily renovation. We grew up looking at Molly
Ringwald and Melissa Gilbert and Nancy McKeon—girls who were considered
pretty or passable, even with big teeth and bad bangs and freckles. Not
to mention, when we were little, there was no such thing as “playing
dress-up”—unless you count putting on your mothers’ high heels and
smoking a drinking straw and speculating on the Kennedy curse.
We
came of age back when very little could be done if you were born
unattractive. Hair extensions and tooth whitening and nose jobs were
reserved for Elizabeth Taylor’s inner circle, so we all just slumped
along in our glasses and retainers and Jordache jeans that went all the
way up to our flat chests and accepted the fact that we’d probably have
to work overtime on our personalities and putting out.
This has
resulted in a whole mess of females who had to live through decades of
bad hair days and unmedicated acne. With faces like ours, we relied more
on our brains than our beauty to get us places. We’re a little more
natural, a little more real, a little more down-to-earth. Bookended by
those who love plastic and those who love princesses, here we are, in
our ponytails, wary of the very un-Zen idea of perfection.
(I realize this particular theory is likely to piss off Boomers and Ys alike.
Don’t
you realize you’re generalizing? Don’t you think women should support
other women’s beauty choices? Are you jealous? Because I bet you slump
around town in an Old Navy Zeppelin t-shirt and a pair of busted Tom’s
and haven’t even brushed your hair today. To which I answer: Yes. Yes. Yes. And why are you following me?)
~
4. We Played Catch With Friends Instead of Fathers
Gen
X guys aren’t much like their dads. They make dinner, they show up at
school conferences, they march in PRIDE parades, they empty dishwashers,
they take their daughters shopping for tampons, they have even been
known to have Pinterest accounts and pin things to them (porn probably,
but hey, it’s a start). A lot of them work from home or stay at home
(also known as working), and, all in all, they’re a great bunch of
fellows who have learned to pitch in, help out, and process complex
emotions.
Some might say this is due to growing up with fathers
who spent more time at the office than in the backyard. Some might say
it’s from growing up with overburdened, multitasking moms. Some might
credit their ponytailed peers with both encouraging and challenging
them. But I’m giving the credit here to
Star Wars.
This
generation of guys grew up watching Luke Skywalker battle his father
Darth Vader— the quintessential shitty dad—and triumph. In many ways,
it’s the father-son story long told in literature and film, but in this
particular instance, the son is incredibly relatable because he’s
incredibly regular. Luke is just a short kid with a regrettable haircut
and self-doubt in spades who is able to take a stand, change his
destiny, and ultimately do away with the illusion that real men are, at
best, detached, and, at worst, domineering dicks. Luke’s real triumph
comes not with the Rebel victory, but in surrendering to the fact that
his father will never be what he wanted him to be (except maybe in the
five minutes before he dies).
This generation of guys watched that
happen over and over again on film. In my opinion, it gave Gen X males
permission to rebel against, reject, and redefine traditional manhood.
And it explains why they’re okay letting go of what could have been and
instead becoming the kind of guy they wished their dad had been—whether
that be a mellow father, a devoted partner, or a fearless drag queen.
Or, in some instances, all three.
(“That’s not true!” you may
retort. “My dad wasn’t preoccupied! He was always there for me, on
bended knee!” Well, congratulations, Robin Thicke. I’m obviously not
talking to you.)
~
5. We Accept Impermanence
Is
“hapathy” this a word? I don’t know. I just think the overarching theme
for Gen Xers is one of happy apathy. The whole Buddhist approach to
living teaches non-attachment, in that “attachment is the origin, the
root of suffering; hence it is the cause of suffering.”
Well,
Generation X sure got its Zen on by watching marriages dissolve, the
Berlin Wall fall, the stock market crash, a president get shot, the
Space Shuttle explode, and Fonzie jump the shark. We grew up accepting
that nothing was permanent—not the economy, not the Metric Conversion
Act of 1975, not even the lead singer for Van Halen. To top it all off,
all of our music has been ripped apart and remixed. All of our movies
remade. Even Twinkies had to be resuscitated and I hear they taste
different now. Because of this, we’ve learned not to get too attached.
And because of this, we’re content.
Does that mean we’re above
reproach? Of course not. We Xers can be aloof and arrogant. We tend to
name our dogs after people (“Meet my pug: Zachary Jones.”) and our kids
after dogs (“This is my oldest: Howl.”). We get misty over the smell of
Aqua Net. And if acid wash jeans come back, we’ll be the first to have
them on, no matter our age, particularly if they are ripped at the knee
to reveal thermal underwear.
But all of us aged 36-ish to 51-ish
should be pretty proud of learning how to “let go and let life.” It’s
been a hard-fought battle, and we’ve got the untouched scars to prove
it. We don’t need an award—we’ve never even owned a trophy case—so
please hold your applause. We’ll just celebrate it quietly, right here,
in our hammock of “just fine”, murmuring our “Meh, meh, mehs” while we
DVR another generation’s biting reality.
IF
YOU CAN remember what life was like before R.E.M.—and can identify a
Care Bear but sure as hell never went to bed with one—consider yourself
an inducted member of Generation X. Our generation is one that’s always
been defined by the best and worst of culture, with MTV, Star Trek,
and the Apple II on one end of the spectrum and rampant divorce, nukes,
and AIDS on the other. As kids, we were left to play independently
while marriages crumbled in the background. As teens, we were
unimpressed by, but close friends with, the REAL real world. And now as
grown-ups, most of us have broken through the other side of angst, like
Dee Snider through a dining room door, and are, simply and deservedly,
downright content.
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