Time to Climb

…and down will come baby,

cradle and all…

Finally, at long last, the spiraling descent into the new 80s has hit bottom and come to a halt. Nowhere to go now but up. Saints be praised! The old cycle of creativity vs consumption is about to start rolling in the other direction for a change; just in time for the wayward Generation X dreamers to take the seat of power (sop=mid 30s age group w/ kids in their teens- the largest target market, and decider of trends/styles/film/music/attitudes/you-name-it). Sadly we’ve several years to go before simplicity and appreciation will take the place of excess and blind consumption. But the credit well has finally run dry, forcing billions of debt ridden people chanting the mantra “it’s better to burn out, than to fade away” to stop dead in their tracks, for the first time, and take a nice long look at the walls of the holes they’ve been digging for so long.

I know I write this blog at least once a year, but as time progresses and I continue to be proven right, I can’t help but revisit it when there are new developments. It’s all hereditary, I think, and begins with the last time the structure of the globe was drastically changed– the war of ’44. As the people in power now are essentially the children of the 50s generation that lived off of the spoils of the victory in WW2 (which is why there are so many nods to the 50s in the 80s, and nods to the 40s/60s in the 90s). The folks that actually grew up during the depression, and fought in WW2, knew better (and later fathered the counter-culture, who would go on to father Generation X), and are essentially the ones who were forced to create things from nothing. This cyclical boom in creativity benefits all, and survives just long enough to wrack up a decent surplus to later be destroyed by the follow-the-leader children of the shit-generation. After spending my teen years in the autumn months of the "boomer" generation, I’ve been eagerly anticipating the next wave of creative influx; when independence and virtue take public favor over manufactured conformity and submission.

For almost nine years now I’ve watched the favor of creativity get replaced by the favor of rampant consumption and uniform conformity among the personalities of the nation. Americans had to have it; had to be the same as their peers…and one credit card after another allowed them to hold their lifestyle illusions for nearly a decade…because the problem with needing to be told what to do, and how to do it, from higher-ups in a capitalist society is that the answer is always the same- spend more money, even if you don’t have any to spend.

The next generation will inherit the royal fuck-ups of the "Bush" generation, and will be forced once again to create something from nothing. The unabomber once described mankind in an allegory called "The Ship of Fools," portraying us as helplessly sailing north into increasingly dangerous territory, while all efforts to preserve the vessel are in vain– but as a lover of humanity, I have faith in mankind’s ability to stave off immediate destruction, on a need-to-do basis, and am very much looking forward to being proud of my own species once again.