Posted on 07/29/2019 10:32:12 AM PDT by Ulmius
After some thought on the generation gap appearing in today's society, I have decided to reach out to some of you to get a wider dialogue. Here are some basics about me:
- 24 years old (been a Free Republic member since 2014)
- served in the regular Army for five years (Arabic linguist), I've been out for a year
- one more semester of a bachelors' degree in international relations, plan to attend grad school for linguistics in spring, have a few computer science online certificates
- working for now as a rent-a-cop for $12/hr part-time, I live with my father
- I'd like to do some linguistics-related work, interested in Middle Eastern and Caucasian languages specifically. I may want to get into a consultancy role related to data science
- I'd describe myself as a right-leaning nationalist, and not as much a libertarian anymore. Socially, I am more on the conservative side
Can't wait to see what y'all have to talk about, thanks.
Wanna check this one out?
maybe try fr
[young ladies on fr— fresh meat?!]
[jr— $$??!!]
:) :)
Bien venido, mi amigo!
Thanks for your answers. To be honest, I’m being a bit selfish here and hoping that some of your answers may contain some useful wisdom to help answer some of -my- internal questions. But enough about that.
A little commentary and follow on -
When the safety net fails. You see this as a foregone conclusion. I don’t disagree. How long do you think we have, and what do you see as the solution? (grim humor aside)
Lies. It’s my belief that today, we, society, all of us are awash in a sea of lies. Someone once said that in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth would be a revolutionary act. It would appear he was right. I would say this has been going on for at least a century, but the truth is much longer than that. Do you yearn for truth? Do I? Where do you think it can be found?
(I do find ‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’ quite amusing, though, but that’s probably not a good answer)
Regarding escape - Would you rather be poor and free, or wealthy and shackled to the machine? Will there be such a thing as freedom? Does it even exist today?
Do you think that we are living in the Matrix? But instead of a pod filled with goo, we are instead shackled to a society that is sucking our life energy out in other ways?
(hehe, sorry, couldn’t resist).
-rant follows, you don’t really need to answer this-
It’s funny, I read this thread, and your thoughts often echo mine, except with a greater sense of impending doom. Unfortunately, from my point of view as an X-er, I find myself agreeing somewhat, and I’m sorry if my questions have been leading. From my point of view …
I WANT ANSWERS
What the hell have these ()-ing morons done with our futures? And I’m not talking about the Boomers, but generations before them too. (Yes, I know, they squandered them) Is there hope? Is it too late? What can we do?
I don’t know, and I don’t expect you to have answers for all this. In the end, we will have to find our own answers, and hopefully find our own freedoms and success in the world.
Myself, while not everything has gone perfectly in my life, I find myself in a situation where I’m tired of the corporate treadmill, I have a decent bag of money, and part of me wants to just bail and head out to a shack in the woods somewhere. Until I have a heart attack and die because I didn’t budget health care, or something equally grim. But at least I’d die ‘free’. Sound like a good idea?
Hahahaha.
Or, I can stick it out like all other good worker drones, and die a couple of months after I retire. One of my bosses managed to have a heart attack and die the week before he was going to retire. Huzzah.
Is any of this BS worth it?
(Sorry, but this is my Gen X-er rant. I’m sure the millennials and Z-ers have or will have their own versions)
True story - buddy of mine works for a multi-national IT corp. Was at a meeting in Europe, discussing downsizing, outsourcing, etc. and was told by one of the honchos over there that basically, this is your future, get used to it. We’re not going to pay you Americans big bucks forever. (Essentially, you’ll either work for Indonesian bucks, or get used to not having a job.) Now, he’s still employed and making decent money, but they’re busy working him to death and sending him to Indonesia for several weeks a year to ride herd on the cheap labor. Whee.
Being on the leading edge of the X-ers, I used to think that if I was lucky, I might just make it through and have a decent life before the bad things come. Now I’m not so sure.
It’s tempting to just take a year or two off and enjoy some “pre-tirement” while the getting’s good, and I still have (some) health left in me. Problem is, my ‘career’ hinges on a clearance, and you can’t really neglect those for too long.
I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. I realize now that there so much that I wasn’t told, or was out right lied to about. It stinks.
And the worst lies of all turned out to be the ones I told myself. Go figure.
Anyway, like I said, what do I know? I don’t even know the answers to my own problems, and while I could pretend to give you advice, who’s to know that I wouldn’t just be perpetuating the lies of the past.
Or maybe I’m just being cynical. Nah, never.
So, one last question, if you’ve managed to make it through this - I’m sure everyone else has given you advice, is there any advice you’d offer to myself, or any of the other geezers out there?
Wisdom isn’t just a one-way street.
:)
P.S. A funny thing. A long time people were a lot more interested in the truth than we seem to be these days. Aside from the obvious sources we could all argue about (Biblical, for example), Thucydides was a rather interesting fellow.
ulnius:
hint- want *results*, focus on foreign born girls
domestic born girls out there:
woops
Haha, many of us go to Thailand and Vietnam for vacations, let’s just say that... but then again, so do you guys too. Gotta say, some of those Orthdox ladies and Lebanese Maronites don’t seem that bad either...
But there's yet another life after this one to prepare for. So my question for you is simple: who is your boss, you or Jesus?
I’m not trying to be obnoxious, this is a serious question: why are most Millennials so arrogant that you can’t tell them anything?
I have relatives who are late-30’s Millennials and they know everything, and everyone who is not a Millennial is a blooming idiot.
there’s foreign resident girls, and then there’s foreign born girls
... if you get my drift, and i hope you do...
:)
Maybe a few decades, couldn’t possibly tell you the solution (the fed neither, I bet)
I do yearn for truth. I think it can be found in finding out what your heart tells you (the part of you that is being spoken to by God) and in synthesizing the combined wisdom of the ages, gravitating to what appeals to you. That being said, no mortal authority can represent the truth in its entirety.
I think I’d rather be poor and free, my soul cries out when I’m shackled anywhere I don’t feel is beneficial to me or society.
Our society’s controlling elements are attempting to shackle us, along with those around us in the world, but their hold is not absolute. That’s what makes life beautiful, and our identities as Americans more meaningful. America is a product of modernism, and maybe the solution to reconciling it with tradition lies in America.
There is always hope, frend.
Ask our survivalist friends about the virtues of isolation, maybe they know
I hardly have any advice, I’d say to myself to stop doing self-defeating actions
As an idea and an archetype, absolutely he is. There’s no way any of my self could possibly compare with the Mercy which toppled empires and survived through millennia. I’ve cried out his name in times of tribulation, and his idea warmed me. You’d be surprised how many people my age truly believe in God and even in Jesus, even homosexuals and SJWs
In practice, I’ve drifted. I’ve committed all sorts of sins and backbiting, but I think about Jesus and God every day, even when I do wrong. After seeing the ability humankind can highjack the divine spark for others from both the Christian and Islamic perspectives, I’ve been awash in a sea of ambiguity concerning where my faith truly lies. I don’t know what truly represents what.
Why work as a rent a cop? Why not stay in the reserves?
Go in a time machine and ask the hippies the same question. I think part of it stems from the enormity of the challenges coming in the future for us. Any attempt we see for elders to understand what we think may be viewed as inadequate or too little too late. Either that, or they might think the internet let them learn more haha
I want the ability to stay open to moving around and traveling overseas (which I have). I may want to do something creative in my future too.
I wasn’t deployed to see them.
There are reserve units all over the place to include Europe. You could always do IRR with your background anyway.
I am the youngest of four. Having to eat their crap every turn of my young life was enough to turn me away: my school was beat up, everything was crowded,...it was like following a plague of locusts.
Mine was the first class to get “new” math and they experimented on us with “open classrooms.” The year after me, they started busing.
But I get your point.
A very honest answer. Your ambiguity can only be resolved by being born again, regenerated into God’s family as His child for all eternity, based entirely on faith in Jesus’s finished work on the cross on your behalf. All else will follow under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit.
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