Of course I’m overgeneralizing. But there really is a huge difference in the kind of worldview/mindset of the pre and post baby-boomer generations, and I almost always found conversations with the former vastly more interesting and rewarding. A stark, down-to-basics difference. Without things like pop-culture obsessions or self-absorbed pursuits. An undistilled ruggedness and outlook towards life.
That generation has a well deserved reputation for grit because they were less affluent and suffered more than the boomers or more recent generations. But there’s a lot of grit in us moderns too. It’s just that it manifests in ways that aren’t conventionally gritty. I work with a bunch of Gen X’ers and millenials. None of us were forced as children to sell apples on the street corner like my grandfather did, but we work our asses off nevertheless. We pour ourselves into what we do. It doesn’t get registered as grit because our efforts aren’t about staving off literal starvation. There’s a lot of character in the current generation, character that I am confident would rise to the occasion if pressed like our grandparents. I think it’s a mistake to think that what we had has been lost forever.