Mel wrote a post a couple weeks ago about searching the Internet for something she read years prior. It reminded me of something I had recently found after years of periodically searching google. It was a poem (I guess you would call it a poem) about growing up in the 1980's. I first came across it 20 years ago and it became this neat reflection we used in our senior year of highschool. I don't even know how I first came across it, as it was in the early days of the Internet back then, and I didn't yet have an email address or even a computer that could access the Internet at home. But it was light and nostalgic and a feel-good piece. Although I wasn't born in the 80's, all of my childhood memories happened then, and this piece touched on that. In an effort to keep this blog Micro, here is the link to read this annomyous poem
Finding this and reading it again, coupled with the news coming out of Paris this weekend made me think: what is this generation going to have to remember fondly? It seems like there is more violence than ever. Maybe it is the instant access we have now; every news website has more horrific stories and headlines than any one person needs to read in a day. Maybe these awful things happened but we didn't hear about them with the frequency that we do now, when war is reported in real time. Maybe the 1980's really were as idealistic as people remember them to be. And sure there is a lot of good in the world still today, that I would like to believe overshadows the bad. But when the news out of Paris and shootings on school campuses around the US become more commonplace vs. a rare occurrence, it really makes me wonder. What poem about the 20-10s are going to be written? What are the children of this generation...my kids, my nieces and nephews, my friend's children-what are they going to remember?
What a powerful thought... it's funny in a way, because just yesterday my husband and I were going through our lifetimes, looking for the events that we felt were life-changing, or we would always remember happening. Some were happy and positive, but so many were unsettling moments, because those tend to be what is remembered most, unfortunately. I think the 2010s might be remembered for turmoil, and for not feeling safe being the norm. I'm sure there's good things to remember, too. As for it being more or less violent, the world has shrunk so much thanks to the internet and social media, so I think like you said we find out about things much more immediately, much more immersively, and much less accurately as things are reported before all the facts are known. There was a quote from Marilyn Manson of all people, after Columbine, that said, "Life isn't more violent now...life is simply more televised." I'm sure I paraphrased that, but thinking about the shift from TV to social media reporting... wow, exponential spread and saturation of events. I hope there is enough positivity to outweigh the violent events in the recent past when looking back on this decade...
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you wrote this (and, by the way, I loved that poem as a fellow child of the '80s) because my daughter brought it up tonight -- the video games she'll remember vs. the ones from my youth. The difference was that we all played together in arcades vs. from your home or alone on your ipad. There are more isolated vs. collective experiences today, and I wonder how that will shape things. When you only had 20 games, you likely knew the same games as everyone else. When there are 2000 games, it's much harder to get those collective memories going.
ReplyDeleteI have often pondered about this - 'Is the present time the most difficult time?'. Then I look back at the world history and realise that it has always been like this - violent, tumultuous and dark. I agree with the quote Jess mentions in her comment - 'Life isn't more violent now...life is simply more televised'. I grew up in the India of 80's and 90's. 80's was the decade when terrorism began to raise its ugly head in the country and 90's was the worst decade. It was the time when the West had still not come face to face with terrorism. Today, after watching the news about Paris bombings, my 4.5 year old son asks me "Why did a few men kill so many other people?" and I wish if only did I know and understand the Why of it.
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