Once upon the time, when computer devices (just a hint at where the term derives from - a job started to spread somewhat in the 1950s and performed by
human professionals), a slogan became somewhat state of the art for innovative performance:
The Best of Both Worlds.
This was somewhat in the early 1990s. Clearly, there is a close relation of the
nerds of that time and
Trekkies.
'Best of Both Worlds' was related to the advantages of the 'old' mainframe world combined with those of the upcoming systems.
Keep the good already there and add the other good which is new.
This would be a great concept to advance in life, as individual as well as a society.
When the computer automation era was kicked off somewhat in the 80s, I remember well there were utmost positive visions of a world where many things would become easier and simpler so that this might provide time and space for the human to have more time for more creative stuff, for more good social relations, for more personal development compared to times when lots of hard and simply physical work was to be invested in just making a living.
We may well be aware that the grandparents generation at that time had been going through extremely harsh situations in WWII, from traumatizing losses to knowing what extreme cold, hunger and lack means. Add getting to know unbelievable brutality and what brainwash (on all sides) can do to mankind and humanity. They who survived tried all to build up from ruins, those visible and those which were left as ruined souls - or call it psyche if it makes you feel better. Most people had lost all - and some people had gained even through the misery. Certainly this is a topic for decades to discuss and clarify, yet, it has not happened very deeply. People wanted to leave all that behind and wanted to live and feel better - which is an understandable reaction. Already only more or less one generation before a complete social structure had been shaken by the machinery of WWI. Please earmark this for later.
It looks a little simple here which it is not, of course, so please consider it just as a reminder. Here and for my purpose it is for
re-membering to get the timeline straight. We are all part of a bigger context and yet, we all carry all this
in-formation in all our cells. There is no way to get rid of it, but there are possibilities to
trans-form.
Next step: baby boom.
There are enough sociological explanations plus, contraceptives were not the rule. First household helpers came up easing especially the women's lives and the 'traditional' family system was celebrated. Still, a woman could rarely make a life on her own and was depending on becoming a neat housewife. On the other hand, their mothers had managed really tough tasks while men had been mainly absent, to war, or absent, in minds, especially after returning often traumatized. It was not considered manlike to talk about personal psychological pain, even or maybe especially not towrads or with their women, the latter could even make them more vulnerable, oh no please, haven't they proven to be 'men'?
This is the
BIOS code the boomers grew up with - despite all the neatness around which created an illusion of having overcome. Children though learn from the unspoken more than from the stuff that is spoken out - the unspoken is that what is potential danger, and as long as children still have senses they 'listen' and adapt to those unspoken framework.
The visible is illusion if the unspoken is the most spooky of all.
Aaah - and we got back to heavily believe in science, industry and tech.
Therefore, what is not visible does not exist.
What a machine can't see is just Fantasy.
What is not provable in rows is not there.
Isn't this awesome?
Not only all stains are diminished - it is even bright, maybe brighter than white?
No worries, I am in for tech a lot - as tools, and I know how they work - and what they can be leveraged for. My Granddad was an engineer, may Dad was one of the first who switched from electrician to just upcoming electronics, a term which was almost not known in the later 1970s in Europe. Myself, I find all the biochemistry, bio-mechanics, neurobiology and most sensitive complexity of the human and all natural design a majestic miracle we can learn plenty from.
My professional life is through the decades closely connected to tech innovations which changed the world but also related to the vision that tech is serving the people - never the other way around. Some places I had been sent in would have had high potential but chose by themselves ... to hinder themselves.
No need to fight for, when all is said and done.
But see what happened after. Some people who are driving their cars into trenches and dead ends thanks to their navigation systems or the twelve-year-old who fell into the subway trails as he played with his smart phone, are only a few symptoms who can make me laugh as this is
only the beginning.
Loop back.
Many or let's say most of the generation charts are quite invalid. Nevertheless, it is a drive to find patterns to understand the world.
Which is o.k.
Just that we must think in much more fragmented patterns if we want to understand anything at all, else we will place anything which comes our ways into wrong boxes.
Because those charts refer to the US at first, and often only, while other parts of the world, based on varying sociocultural history,
a) have experienced certain impulses totally differently, and
b) among these even within same generations, there are ultimately heterogeneous groups. Some individuals may be in sensitive phases for one thing, others for others, and others in no sensitive phase at all.
Same thing happening, same event, same impulse works completely different on the individual.
Provided, the receptor IS an individual.
Let's say, this is the soil a seed is falling on. Soils are completely different. Some are grown with plants and microbiology where a seed may either dwell and flourish or get attached by bugs and turn vulnerable, some other provide a microbial system in which a healthy plant turns into a pest for all the others which looks positive at first but turns out to be disastrous in the long run.
Nothing is good, nothing is bad. Everything is what it is.
It is us to pick and choose - or pick and loose.
Loop loop back ... well, sorry for this, it is a complex matter. There is a line but the connections are clearly exceedingly complex.
Okay, let's recall roughly for the
Western world:
WWI-experiencers: trauma, repression, in bad times people tend to follow promising 'leaders': new war.
WWII-survivors: trauma, depression, home upgrades, neatness 'brighter than white'.
- In-between: home automation, the Rock'n Roll rebellion, 50s-60s
Post-war birth boomers ... grew up in the 'show off just the brighter than white' codex.
- In-between: Martin Luther King et al. early 60s, Flower Power, late 60s- early 70
Boomers II or Gen X: labelled as 'extremely critical', suppressed by patriarchal Boomer I structures.
- In-between: Digital Tech revolution starting up in the late 1970s
So-called Gen Y (creatively, the letter after the X) or 'Millenials' - the latter is obsolete, calender is just man-made and states nothing but a random number: Know no hunger, is stuffed with tech like a Thanksgiving Turkey with filling, reversed any ecological advancements and achievements in global conscience, for them there is 'only them'. Lost physical and cognitive abilities: can neither walk straightly nor talk more than three words in context, blubber out whatever has been filled into them, impress massively as experts in posing and 'presence' was conditioned by the media era. Look young but behave like old people who have lost body control;
What to me though is the most frightening is that this generation was throughout their lives well-conditioned to 'following' without ever questioning what this means in the long run.
They dream of neat homes, an excess of the 1950s, cherish old idols, but their crux is that they with all strength want things without taking into account that a society consists of more than one person. They just demand - entitled by whatever, nobody knows, else they will simply take it. Educated by TV role models, they have never considered why people are laughing about certain personalities exaggerated in sitcom characters: for them it was 'real' how much they may ever claim that they know the difference between virtual and real world. The truth is, they do not know this difference, as well as they do not know many other differences and as much as their 'reality' has become two-dimensional so have they.
They never revolted. This point is extremely relevant for personal development: to question the generation before, to sort out bad and cherish the good, to find oneself, to find one's own personal identity, to find out who others are and where oneself stands in context. Once upon the time, these kind of mental revolutions were ignited by better and academic education - now that many more young people than ever before are materially able to study, it looks somehow like this has led to more phlegm than ever, too. A mass phlegm, affecting a whole generation.
They will also not revolt: they will revolt for their personal material well-being but not question whether material is the only relevant issue in this world. How could they? They do not know worth of neither goods nor other values than what they personally want. Europe, neatly following the US, has slowly decreased personal freedom, especially the rights for criticism despite it may look just the opposite. Now, who never tests the system will also not know the system; and has to believe, a neat follower. A whole generation that was not educated to critically deal with the media has been enslaved by the same. I had lots of discussions on this issue what all kinds of people - the outcome is that all people who are very close with tech and very aware of tech step back from tech in many regards, knowing it is tools, while the generation heavily affected by mainstream media tech have:
Developed into tools themselves.
This is re-engineering the wrong way around.
Not the brains were to be adapted to function on a level of apps!
The mainstream follower mentality is actually what worries me most.
What I see is a whole generation which is mostly
- back to the 1950s' lack of awareness and drive for looking neat - to the outside
- incapable of dealing with the information bulge of today thanks lack of healthy criticism
- mind-wise back to black vs. white/ us vs. others, a mindset which enabled 2 world wars
- best trained to be 'followers' instead of thinkers, a temptation of the 30s/40s
- fully ready to hand over their and other peoples lives to machines instead the other way around
- accelerating the worst of the 1990s' greed and selfishness which lead to the 2008 fall.
No learning curve.
So crazy because it is them who will need to live on this planet.
Forget any escape - there will not be.
Only the option of waking up, thinking, transforming, overcome.
The good news: it is not all of them.
I certainly know some very mindful young people - but they're rare.
The question though may be how very few can change a reduced mindset of so many.
From Elven to Orks. Don't be fooled by elvish looks. It's all Photoshop.
Cheers,
Lyn
