if like a crab you could go backward.

There’s a Winston Churchill quote that I’ve seen bantered about by some of my political adversaries. Something about how if one isn’t a liberal at age 21, one doesn’t have a heart. But if not a conservative by age 30, one doesn’t have a brain. Mm. You can well imagine how I digest that one.

But I think about that. I’ve actually been thinking about that progression of the heart and mind a bit lately. As I’ve been writing this novel thing… and in trying to understand exactly the type of story, watching other stories that have been written with a similar theme. So on Thanksgiving weekend when I had a long visit with my couch and television, I decided to watch The Big Chill. Then that led me to start watching episodes of Thirtysomething on Netflix. Aside from the fascinating parallels of those stories about my parents’ generation to the one I am now writing about my own – and apart from the obvious retrospect of fashion and camera skills on film – I find these an interesting snapshot of the aging of human character. Or… a generation’s character.

One thing that is mentioned by these thirtysomethings is the quieting of their adulthood. That their early twenties were full of protests and activism and ideals. And then, when married and parenting, furnishing a home, they settle into the satisfaction of having money and… not rocking the boat. Or rather, making sure that boat gets the individual and that individual’s child to a better island than anyone else. It’s an illustration of how greed is good supplanted love and peace.

It is a strange juxtaposition of thought to the fact tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. I’ve found a newfound appreciation and solidarity in his solo music this year. The simple beauty of his messages, that resonate so profoundly because he died so young… and yet… sometimes I can’t help but to wonder… and maybe this is awful… if he lived into the 80’s, into the me decade, would he have followed his generation? Would he have had a Heather Mills? Who can say? Maybe it isn’t to say. Because his words still reverberate beyond thirty years later, to someone who was a mere child more focused on Santa than his death in December of 1980.

But, in pondering these films and this generation, I realize I am the generation of the children for whom a lot of these hippies redirected their focus. They say when you have a child, everything changes. I don’t know that. I don’t have a kid. And I’m not saying it is wrong to want to take care of your child, to seize opportunity to give them a good life of Barbie dolls and Atari and Playskool kitchen sets and soccer games and dance classes and Disney videos… but what did our parents lose in that desire to give the children of my generation more than we needed? Was that demonstration of love for the child worth the loss of concern for the larger universe? Does that, in fact, make those parents better people?

And did it make us, as the children of those sold out hippies, better people? 

Obviously, not everyone sold out. I don’t even think my parents did. My parents weren’t really hippies either. But… the way the peace and love generation did, in fact, become breeders of a generation of slackers and entitlement… I really don’t know if that shift in focus was entirely a change that qualifies as improvement.

These are broad sweeping observations – based on Hollywood interpretations. I know that. I know people in my life who are very good examples of the mantra of the 60’s still alive and pulsing in the 21st century. But… when we are arguing that rich people need to keep their petty tax cuts and people who don’t have a job can’t keep their unemployment benefits… I think, man, what happened? When did we stop trying to imagine?