The sixties may have been the Pepsi TM Generation but today is the Me Generation. People today are so self-absorbed with themselves that it is frightening. The young twenty-something’s in particular. Today we live in a society that is obsessed with instant gratification. People are always on their cell phones either talking, texting, checking their e-mail, or playing games. They don’t read the paper anymore or even listen to the news. They listen to their iPods so they can listen to only their favorite music, God forbid they should have to listen to something that isn't absolutely their favorite song, at least for today. To a large extent, if it doesn’t involve them, they don’t give a shit. Virtually everyone knows about the war in the Middle East but they really don’t know anything about it. It is just a different form of a video game that some unlucky people are involved in. In the sixties, everyone knew about the Viet Nam War and kept up with it on a daily basis. We knew the daily body counts even if they did turn out to be somewhat governmentally fabricated. Maybe the threat of the draft hanging over our heads caused us to have a sharper interest in the war. Today if you don’t sign up to play with the military, you aren’t involved. I read that president Bush’s popularity numbers are at an all time low low point and yet very few people openly protest the war. There aren't even any good protest songs being written today. It is probably because it would require them to do something. To take time away from themselves. Not everyone is this appethetic, my daughter and her husband are very concerned and have no problem protesting any number of causes where they preceive an injustice to humanity. Thank God there are still a few that care. Caring about a cause gives you a reason for living. More people need to learn this fact.
The only thing a large portion of young people want to do today is entertain themselves with some form of self gratification. If it doesn’t involve having fun, then it isn’t important. I own a bar that closes at 2 am most mornings and almost every morning at 2, there is a large group of people who are trying to decide what they are going to do next. What party are they going to go to, are they just going to get more inebriated, get high, get laid, or some combination of the three. Some of them don't even wait to leave the bar, they make frequent sojourns out to the parking lot to smoke out and then are amazed when they come back in the bar reeking of marijuana and find out that I fully realize what they are doing. I may be old and slow, but I am not stupid. I am not contending that pot did not exist in the sixties, God knows it certainly did, but at least in this part of the country it was handled a little more clandestinely. We had our share of Potheads, but they knew what they were and didn't make excuses for themselves. They were not hypocritical about what they did and who they were. People today have this opinion that if you don't like what they are doing, then you are the one with the problem, not them. They never do anything wrong, you just incorrectly perceive it to be wrong. It is your problem, not theirs. There was a person that worked for me some time ago who used to complain that their professor would continually count them late or absent for his class and frequently give this person a grade of zero because they were not there when a test began. Now I knew that this was the first class of the day for this individual but when I asked them what the time the class began and I found out that it began at noon, any sympathy I had for them went out the window. If you can't regularly make it to class by noon, then maybe you are wasting your time and money in college. In the sixties, most college students went through school in four years, now the norm seems to be closer to the six, seven or eight year plan. People routinely sign up for classes spending tens of thousands of dollars of their parents money amd then when they find that classes interfere with their own private schedules, they drop th classes or just quit going to class. The employee that I mentioned earlier is now 24, I believe, started college at 18 and now has acquired a sophomore classification after six or seven years in school. What is worse, is that they see nothing abnormal about this situation. In the sixties, this would not happen because if you fucked up, Uncle Sam was waiting and more than willing to give you a job. Today there is no penalty for bad behavior. We dare not say anything to them because we might damage their precious self esteem. We must be politically correct. If they practice unsafe sex and get pregnant and need an abortion, it's not their fault. We need to learn to acommidate them while they are inconvenienced. It was too much trouble to wear a condom or remember to take a pill. It seems to me that the sixties were the Pepsi generation, hippies spent their time trying to make the world a better place, trying to understand themselves and others and believed in peace and love. Today the Me generation believes in themselves, don't care about others, and if you don't or can't love THEM, just as they are, then Fuck you. Here-in lies the problem.
The only thing a large portion of young people want to do today is entertain themselves with some form of self gratification. If it doesn’t involve having fun, then it isn’t important. I own a bar that closes at 2 am most mornings and almost every morning at 2, there is a large group of people who are trying to decide what they are going to do next. What party are they going to go to, are they just going to get more inebriated, get high, get laid, or some combination of the three. Some of them don't even wait to leave the bar, they make frequent sojourns out to the parking lot to smoke out and then are amazed when they come back in the bar reeking of marijuana and find out that I fully realize what they are doing. I may be old and slow, but I am not stupid. I am not contending that pot did not exist in the sixties, God knows it certainly did, but at least in this part of the country it was handled a little more clandestinely. We had our share of Potheads, but they knew what they were and didn't make excuses for themselves. They were not hypocritical about what they did and who they were. People today have this opinion that if you don't like what they are doing, then you are the one with the problem, not them. They never do anything wrong, you just incorrectly perceive it to be wrong. It is your problem, not theirs. There was a person that worked for me some time ago who used to complain that their professor would continually count them late or absent for his class and frequently give this person a grade of zero because they were not there when a test began. Now I knew that this was the first class of the day for this individual but when I asked them what the time the class began and I found out that it began at noon, any sympathy I had for them went out the window. If you can't regularly make it to class by noon, then maybe you are wasting your time and money in college. In the sixties, most college students went through school in four years, now the norm seems to be closer to the six, seven or eight year plan. People routinely sign up for classes spending tens of thousands of dollars of their parents money amd then when they find that classes interfere with their own private schedules, they drop th classes or just quit going to class. The employee that I mentioned earlier is now 24, I believe, started college at 18 and now has acquired a sophomore classification after six or seven years in school. What is worse, is that they see nothing abnormal about this situation. In the sixties, this would not happen because if you fucked up, Uncle Sam was waiting and more than willing to give you a job. Today there is no penalty for bad behavior. We dare not say anything to them because we might damage their precious self esteem. We must be politically correct. If they practice unsafe sex and get pregnant and need an abortion, it's not their fault. We need to learn to acommidate them while they are inconvenienced. It was too much trouble to wear a condom or remember to take a pill. It seems to me that the sixties were the Pepsi generation, hippies spent their time trying to make the world a better place, trying to understand themselves and others and believed in peace and love. Today the Me generation believes in themselves, don't care about others, and if you don't or can't love THEM, just as they are, then Fuck you. Here-in lies the problem.
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