Deep Thoughts, Not By Jack Handey

Here comes some strange writing that sounds melodramatic:

Some periods of time have a really distinct identity that's strong enough to effect everyone who lived through them. For example, everyone talks about the radical 1960s, either with approbation or derision. But the fact is that the 1960s changed "us," both as a society and as individuals. I was thinking about how the 1960s changed forever the way we - as a society - see the world. Jim Crow, justice, peace, feminism, civil liberties - these are some big issues.

But what of the children who grow up during these distinctive periods? Certainly, they were more effected than the adults, who were already formed by the times of their own upbringings and are usually malleable in slighter and more subtle ways.

What, then, about me, a child of the 1970s? And my youngest sister, a child of the 1980s? Surely we too were shaped by the times of our childhoods, if perhaps not so dramatically.

In thinking about the 80s I wonder about that decade's legacy: me first; high maintenance beauty ideals; a shiny, happy face, country club coke parties replacing reefer around the campfire.

The children of the 1980s are now adults. How will they change the world?

One very interesting thing about children of the 80s and beyond - and I'll include some children of the 1970s in here too, for those like myself whose sexual awakening came in the later 1980s and beyond:

We see sex and death as inextricably linked. We see sex as dangerous in a way that mere birth control cannot address. How does this change us? How will it change the world?

***

And now you know what I jot in my notebook late at night when I'm curled up in a hotel bed on a business trip. Thank goodness I'm alone at these times and everyone else is spared my rambling "deep" thoughts. Until now.