On The Face Of It

It is drowning the goodness in us. It is flushing the purities, the hope for something better. A generation devoid of purpose, attempting to create purpose out of the alcoholic void. This is a call to all of those in my generation. It is a plea. Put down the bottle. Put down the rolling paper. Put down the pipe. Put down the needle. Throw them underfoot and be sure that they perish along with the lifestyle; we have internalized these devices. We have internalized the external, forcing the goodness out. Do we work five days a week to spend two nights in bars and clubs? Is the ultimate measure of a social evening how many shots are slugged, how many fights started? Is there more to relationships than the late night groping between the men and women who leave bars at the same time rather than together? We are a faded generation. Famine and homelessness and child abuse are no longer viable problems. They now have new functions: Maxim and FHM tell us to give these terms lip-service in front of the hottie with the glasses, the “issues-girl,” the secretly hyper-sexual wallflower. We are being pimped, the “issues-girl” just another demographic in advertisers’ Venn diagrams.

But those are real issues and real people who bleed red and cry and laugh–as we are real. We must take back what has been taken from us: our creativity, our empathy, our care. We must not be afraid to speak out on behalf of those whose voices have been stolen. We must not be afraid to stand alone. For there is something greater out there. There is an illusion to be transcended. It will not be easy. Our grandparents had their wars, our parents, their social causes. In truth, we face the greatest struggle of all: the will to sacrifice all that we are in order to start again, to create something of substance from a vacuous patchwork, a cultural Frankenstein of strip malls, MTV, Playstation, and processed meat. It now falls to us. We stand on soil the color of ash, a cultural wasteland. It is the frontier that comes after JFK’s final frontier. And this is a call to all frontiersmen. If you have already embarked, Godspeed. If you continue to sleep through your days, dreaming of nights in the bar, rouse yourselves now! It is not too late. But too late is just over the horizon and moving fast.