Generation Gap

[pat19989]

You are 100% correct. I don't know about the sexuality thing, though. It seems quite insignificant in the grander scheme of things. I can't see why I or anyone else should really care about what other consenting adults are doing.

My reference isn't to the sexual activities themselves, it's about the maelstrom of political furor around them from all sides. There's the cancellation phenomenon: people deemed homophobic are at risk of being excommunicated, being fired from their jobs, shamed on the internet in front of millions of people, abandoned by their friends and family. This is one of the number one topics of concern for this generation. You've probably heard of it, but I don't know if you know how intense it actually is.

As a racial minority, I understand the arguments for and against cancel culture from multiple sides. On one side, there's people who say that it's just people who've bullied and discriminated against their whole lives finally standing up for themselves. On the other side, there's people arguing that it's thought policing and restricting freedom of speech. This is just a surface level description, and discussing the topic in its entirety would be an entirely different topic. Each situation needs to be evaluated on a case-by-base basis.

But I'm bringing up the general example to illustrate the complexities of positive and negative energy here, and how intense it is for this generation. One person says a gay slur, another person gets them fired from their job. There's situations where people can be ostracized based on allegations alone, without evidence. Where's the positivity, where's the negativity? And then this happens in a context where there are huge social, political, and corporate movements in the background of all of this. The implications of polarity become far more confusing.

I don't know your age, but I do know that most people on this forum are in their 30s, 40s, or older. So I'm not trying to single you out, I'm trying to illustrate how many well-meaning people don't get what it's actually like to be 20-something, or a teenager right now, and how hard it is to remain positive in this extreme social chaos.

But I'm speaking about this because I want to bridge gaps, and maybe that will help members of different generations understand each others' issues. This could help us reach another level of harmony, and more productive levels of communication, possibly even rippling across the collective unconsciousness.

Coming from a 20-something, social media is wreaking havoc on the collective consciousness of everyone my age. I am off social media for the most part and that has helped. But anxiety and depression run so rampant with so many people my age and below. It has become very normalized and a common subject of self-depreciating jokes. I know that these conditions are real and affect some people that live healthy lifestyles. But I can't help but feel like a huge part of the widespread depression and anxiety is a result of overstimulation and extreme self-consciousness brought about by social media as well as the uphill climb in society to avoid high fructose corn syrup and other highly processed, also normalized, meals.

A lot of our parents don't know any better than to feed us that crap, and once you grow up on it, it is hard to change. I am seeing a lot of people my age as they get in to their 20s begin caring deeply about their health though. There has definitely been a sort of mass public health wake up that all of the food from chains and processing is not good for us. I think social media played a part in that 'wake up' as well. A lot of us are overstimulated and overinformed haha