1964 Was a Great Year
Me and the hubby casually hanging with a cool chick we met one day in 2017
I am turning 60 this month, as did Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in April, and as Vice President Kamala Harris will in October. Apparently, 1964 was a good year. My thanks to the political pundits out there who are proclaiming 60 as ‘young’, and for the Harris-Walz ticket showing the world the difference between a good skin care routine and, well, not.
But mostly, I’d like to mark this as the point at which we begin to pry political power from the cold, arthritic hands of the Boomers, and pass it to GenX. And before you “Hey, Boomer” me, I’d like to point out that ‘generations’ are kinda bullshit but fun to talk about so I’m going with the notion that Tim, Kamala and I all identify as not-Boomer. With GenX starting in “about 1965”, 1964 is close enough, especially when you look at descriptions of the “GenX personality.” Psychology Today calls GenX “a generation whose worldview is based on change, on the need to combat corruption, dictatorships, abuse, AIDS, a generation in search of human dignity and individual freedom, the need for stability, love, tolerance, and human rights for all.” Sounds about right.
Like me, Harris and Walz probably have childhood memories of the energy crisis of the 1970s, Iranian hostages, of Reagan wanting to drown the government in a bathtub, of the assassination attempt on Reagan, of the Berlin Wall coming down, of Sally Ride and the space shuttle Challenger coming down, the corruption of the Iran-Contra deal, and much, much, more.
As GenX children we roamed free - the last generation to do so before helicopter parenting was invented as a way to shame working mothers. We navigated life without cell phones, without the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. Without those things, we understood limitations - we did not know everything, and we often got lost. We were the slacker generation and the latchkey kids.
There’s a phrase from my childhood that I don’t hear much these days: “There but for the grace of God go I.” In my experience this was uttered upon seeing someone less fortunate than our family, and it was a way of reminding us all that good fortune is fragile and transient. Our lives are guided by by luck and circumstance more than we want to believe, and we are all just a few steps from illness, homelessness, poverty. It feels to me in my 60 years on this planet that we’ve lost this humility and replaced it with ego. After all, we know so much now and we are never ever lost, which means we never have to stop and ask others for help. We have bought in to the illusion that we are each all knowing and all seeing.
But thank god for GenZ. The young adults of today intuitively grasp that something has gone awry with our relationship with technology, the world, each other, and ourselves. And they are calling bullshit. This is the group that has given us the vocabulary we needed to understand our mental health - because they value mental health more than they value the trappings of success. Money is great and important, but only takes you so far. GenZ is reminding us that time is the truly valuable currency - time with friends, with family, and especially creating a world where everyone is given time, and has the right to family, friends, health, and a future. If GenX was the ‘slacker’ generation, then GenZ is the ‘quiet quitting’ generation.
It feels like as a society we are lost - we know that there are large and difficult problems that we must face, but we do not know how to approach them in any sort of coherent manner. As the generation now coming into power, X’ers need to remember that we know how to be lost, we know how to confront the unknown. We must bring friends, allies, and a big dose humility to the table. We need to help the younger generations not by telling them what to do but instead by helping them ask the right questions and then listening to their answers. The kids of today have always lived in a world of overwhelming amounts information and we need their help in sorting signal from noise, cutting the bullshit away to find reality. If we are attentive and (I’ll say it again for those of you in the back) humble, we can make the world a better place.
For all that I’ve been complaining to anyone who will listen that getting old sucks, 60 is really a great amount of years. I feel like I am finally getting glimpses of wisdom, I’m finally benefitting form experience, finally not giving a shit about what anyone else thinks. I’m probably projecting but I feel like Harris and Walz have that too. They’ve been through some things in their lives and they know that the world is a better place when we focus on compassion, when we look for joy instead of fear, when we celebrate the sheer enormity of life in all its variations.
So here’s to 1964 and the beginnings of GenX, the slackers who are now ready to take up the fight. Let’s focus on the joy of being lost, of discovering the unknown, and delighting in the incredible mystery of life. And the joy of voting in November.