My Generation Hates Reality

I'm 26.9 years of age and I've come to the conclusion that everyone in my generation has spent their lives trying to recreate fiction. My generation is beating itself over the head with concepts, goals, and expectations that aren't only an exercise in futility, but also utterly unrealistic. We've all woven our lives into some lost episode of 'Beverly Hills 90201' or that really funny scene in '(fill in buddy comedy here)'and if yo look closely you'll see that it is ruining our lives.

Take the way we consume news for example. If you were to walk the streets right now and ask 300 twenty-somethings about what is going on in Myanmar right now most of them would give you the blank look of someone trying to figure out what state Myanmar is in. Conversely, if you were to ask those same people and ask them the title of Dane Cook's new movie, I'm assuming you'd get at least a third more correct responses. In short, we don't care. If we can't get any entertainment value out of an item, it holds no intrinsic value to us. We want to talk to our friends about our new dvd player not some depressing oppression going on in southern Asia. What you then have is a large group of self-absorbed, materialistic, and celebrity obsessed dim wits who wouldn't have it any other way...and these are our future leaders and parents in these groups!

Our personal relationships have also become a casualty of this era. Love has become some cheesy romantic-comedy by-product. A child who was spanked out of justified discipline by his mom twice in the eighties has grown up to be "the product of an abusive childhood" in the new millennium. People whose parents drove a Saab instead of a BMW now tell people they grew up poor. Where did they get this from? The fiction we see everyday and internalize as fact. On TV "the one" is perfect in all aspects and loves you endlessly despite the fact that you're narcissistic and cheated on them twice. In this book you read, it said spanking was a brutish, cruel punishment that resulted in serial killers and suicides. If my parents can't buy me everything I want then I am an underprivileged child, so feel sorry for me. Our expectations of life have skyrocketed into some alternate universe.

It's even gotten so bad that people who break their neck to keep pace with whatever out of reach fantasy they are trying to portray look at people who are just happy living life as being weirdos and losers. Mention to your living-beyond-my-means-and-loving-it friends how you don't want a Bentley or how their $800 dollar purse was a waste of money and you'll be called a jealous hater directly to your face (which is better than what they'll call you behind your back).

Trying to turn apples into gold will only result in you ruining some perfectly good apples. My generation has been raised by absentee parents that hired the TV as a babysitter; and now that we're all growns up (© Vince Vaughn), we look at the world around us as a series of purchases, boasts, and bitch sessions.