Saturday, April 15, 2023

The Adults Lied

The music should have been the first clue.  Ask anyone when the best music came out and most people will tell you of a time when they were in their teens. How can so many people think the music of their teens was the best music ever? 

Aren't we, as a collective, supposed to be getting smarter about knowing what people want? Shouldn't music be getting better every year?

The adults told us that things would get better as we got older. The promise was that we'd have more power, more authority, more autonomy, more spending power, more freedom. "Things get better," they said. Finish high school. Go to college. Start a career. Get married. Have kids. Buy a house. Own a brand new car that no one else has ever driven. Travel to interesting places.

I'm probably part of the last generation that it was very easy to mislead. We had nothing but their word to go on, so we followed the path the path they laid out for us. And by the time we realized it was all a lie, it was too late. Some things got better. Some times were better. But so much turned out to be a lie. Now as adults, it was our turn to lie to the kids.

Only... something happened. Social media happened. No longer did careers and family life take you out of the conversation, leaving only authority figures, religious figures, political figures and capitalist figures to do the talking. Now anyone could say "uh... yeah... no..." 

Things don't get better. The adults lied.

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