Conscious Choice: The Perfect Symmetry of Generation X

July 2007 | From the Editor

The Perfect Symmetry of Generation X

On a cool and quiet afternoon in early November of 1989, while in my dorm room overlooking Boston’s Kenmore Square, my tiny French doors opened and my suite mate Tom, a tall and exceedingly kind boy who had an Air Force ROTC scholarship and loved Bloom County, appeared in the doorway looking both ecstatic and completely flummoxed. He said nothing, and I gestured, “What?”

“You’ve got to see it to believe it,” he said.

I got up and followed him out of my little antechamber over to our television. There, all seven of my suite mates were fixated on the glowing screen, where a line of people stood atop a wall, reaching down to pull others up. At the bottom of the screen, a graphic read, “Berlin Wall Falls!”

We were silent, unable to grasp the enormity of the moment, unable to believe it was actually happening right before our eyes. We feared a whisper might make it all vanish, like it was all a cruel trick meant to punish us for our hubris. Then, after a long, whistling exhale, Tom broke the silence.

“So much for the Air Force,” he said, and we all let forth screams of joy that went on for weeks, if not months. It was the happiest moment in my life up til that point.

This one event, this perfect moment in time, defines my generation, Generation X, better than any other. It was a benevolent bridge between epochs, the dawn of a brilliant, ephemeral era when the threat of global annihilation was at its nadir and the future was filled with nothing but promise and hope and restful nights of sleep. It was the time when my generation was granted its reprieve, given the keys to the Global Village, and told to prepare for a different kind of tomorrow.

It was, after all, perfect symmetry that this bridge moment would be held up by this small bridge generation which was born into the latter half of the Cold War and grew up in the polluted Reagonomic backwash of the most turbulent era in American history. As we emerged into adulthood, we were told we were “slackers” who would never do better than our parents. Our answer was to redefine what “do better” meant and then to manifest those values and practices in ways our parents never could have dreamed. Dad may have been a ‘successful lawyer’ with a golden parachute, but junior invented the search engine and broke away from the vicious cycle of his family dysfunction.

So, as we GenXers begin to ascend to the leadership of our society, it is incumbent upon us to provide mentorship to the Millennial Generation who will succeed us, like the Beat Generation did for the Baby Boomers. The Beats, like GenXers today, were small in number and less affluent, yet highly mobile, highly creative and ideologically vague. They provided the framework upon which the architecture of change was built during the 1960s and ’70s as GenXers will provide a similar socio-cultural context to the Millennials in these equally turbulent years ahead.

The Boomers believed in the American Dream, saw it shattered, and so suffered the pains of their idealism. We GenXers were taught the American Dream, but wondered how AIDS, crack and homelessness fit into it, and so suffered the pains of our cynicism. The Millennials are known for their optimism, which is remarkable considering they were shaped by 9/11 and are coming of age in the most hated nation of a planet in decline.

So to the Boomers I offer appreciation for their intentions to create a better world, and for a successful cultural, if not a political, revolution. To the Millennials, I offer my awe-inspired praise, along with a hefty side of chastening and a strong suggestion to study your history (remember, knowledge is power).

And to my fellow GenXers I say, well done, slackers.

— Charles Shaw

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