the age we live in
Given that my parents’ generation endured an impressively weird psychological upbringing due to the Cold War, I am intrigued by how they shuffled of an even worse epoch upon their children. To be sure, a lot of the problems with the world aren’t new, there is just more information and much more availability to it by everyone. Whether it is a worse, more paranoid, world or just a more self-aware world, it still sucks. With my background, I feel like we are being primed for impending doom.
This round of an often had thought by me was spurred by Brooks’ op-ed about American spending habits. We have totally lost the plot on how to use our money, at the personal, commercial, and federal levels. we are increasingly dependent on the shadowy them, and they are increasingly telling us what to do. none of this is new (and it also has deep roots in human psychology, and behavioral economics), but it is still troubling.
I add to this not only the current state of the world, but the generalized anxiety that we all should be going through in order to make sure the world is better when we leave it (despite our parents’ best efforts otherwise). When we have to worry about every little decision we make, and maps start to be generated about how to buy the best products, life just isn’t that fun to live. I can see, reprehensible as it is, why the masses choose ignorant bliss. But then we are just going to screw it up even worse than the Boomer’s did.
