Tuck me in with an Answer

[AndiMer]

Why is my generation (I'm 21) staring into the abyss? Who's responsible? And, is there anything I can do about it?

Good night, folks.

[uppityperson]

1. Same question I had 35 yrs ago when I was 21. Good night, sweet dreams

[Zorra]

2. 1) Conservatives put you there.

2)Conservatives

3) Vote for Progressive Democrats, and join in the general strike when it happens.

[DontTreadOnMe]

3. Greed has taken over

I think if you want to point to the biggest influence, it is the effect of consumerism on TV. Everyone is taught that buying stuff makes you happy. The more stuff you have, the happier you are... more is better.

So if you need more, then you need more money -- and if it takes you to invent the newest pyramid scheme, then it is ok, as long as YOU get rich -- who cares about the "little" guy.

Take over a company... fire people if you have to, as long as you get that Year End Bonus.

Hell, move the company overseas, and fire everyone! As long as you keep getting your check. Your kids need to buy some more stuff. And you need a bigger house to keep all that stuff.

I saw it on TV. Greed is good.

And don't even think about raising my taxes... I haven't finished buying all my stuff!

[Skink]

4. baby boomers and Reagan.

I mean the boomers that gave us Reagan.

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. Total moral bankruptcy.

The Buddhists contemplate skulls to remind themselves of the impermanent nature of life. This contemplation of the short lived limited self is the seed of moral action, by which a person realizes that its not about them, and decides to dedicate themselves to helping others. In the east, moral development was traditionally associated with aging: Youth enjoys life, the older give of themselves to guide and aid the youth, the elderly meditate. But that doesn't exist here. Here the aging run in horror from their wrinkles, seeking plastic surgery and injections to stretch the skin on their faces and make them look more like they are young so they can cling desperately to the hedonism of youth. The new generation is only something to further that, a resource. They are having their futures sold into slavery to China through debt for a little short term extra cash, they are having all the strategic resources consumed and they will be left with a world that is a garbage dump of pollution with no resources to clean it up.

Make no mistake - debt, energy, pollution/climate - you ARE staring into the abyss, and the dismissive posters who said they went through the same aren't speaking to that fact. So who's to blame? Its the culture. Its the death denying "you can have it all" culture that's gone to far and fallen to deeper and deeper in the amoral depths of self gratification at the cost of all others.

My advice? Just survive. Its like with Zeus, he had to survive so his cannibalistic parent Chronos so he could become strong and come back and cut him open. Its sad but that's that's about where things are at.

[Newest Reality]

6. The society and culture

are self-replicating. They created you. Your only hope is to realize that nothing you think or do at this point is really your own or unique.

They told you who you are when you were too young and naive to even know what they were doing. Later, they told you that you are real, you are separate, what you should and should not do, and that you are totally responsible for everything you do. Yet, you never were encouraged to question free will, choice, the religion they told you that you were, etc.

You now find yourself, adaptable, evolving, multi-million-year-old biocomputer that you are, in a quandary. As a child, you really did have to accept what the replicants told you in order that you could survive in the cultural system. Yet, either you accepted the program and went with it, (and either failed or prospered in that scenario) or you questioned the Status Quo and saw something going on that did not jibe with your programming to date.

Some people teach that you must go with your intuition. That, at first, seems useful and correct. Yet, today, there seems to be far more benefit in going with what you understand to be counter-intuitive. At least, in that respect, you will be able to question what has been culturally inserted into you and, if there is a true intuition to be had as either a some total, instantaneous result of your acquired knowledge or some sort of metaphysical knowing, you will be able to discern it all the better.

Is there really a such thing as free will? Well, that is conventionally held to be truth. However, if you go with the counter-intuitive, you can very logically question that assumption and argue otherwise. The same applies to many issues that people will argue to be givens, truths, or what-have-you. Yet, are these stances anything other than hallowed abstractions that rely on nothing more than a consensus by a dominant majority?

Yes, there may scientifically verifiable "actualities" out there from ourselves, but we, like most lifeforms are required to abstract our environment by way of our biological nervous system in order to relate and respond to each stimuli. Here we are with such complex nervous systems that we are able to contemplate our own abstraction and what it means to us and how exact its relationship is to actuality. That is what reality is for us, then. It is our idea of what is and we contrast our mutual agreements, (an arguments against that reality) against those who will not accept it, or those whom we deem insane or abnormal in contrast to it.

[Tunkamerica]

7. The 22 year olds

[readmoreoften]

8. Capitalism. It's a systemic problem. Here: this cartoon explains it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0&feature=player_embedded#at=192