Where
is the cult for work, the cult for perfection? Or at least the attempt to reach
perfection?
A world of immediate retribution has engulfed
us, we are no longer what we can be but what we believe we deserve to be.
The
old generation wants to preserve its acquisitions while the young generation
wants to create opportunities, and all rush blindly in their own direction.
It
feels like yesterday I was walking in the streets of Philadelphia, Dakar, Paris
or Tananarive!
Each
step was a discovery, every corner a surprise, and always a multitude of
interesting encounters!
No
conflict there, just peace made between youth and the knowledge acquired by
time.
And now, nothing!
I have been walking since
the shattered sky has been vaguely glued together by the years dedicated to
redo what was not….
In my present state of mind there is nothing to look at,
very little to discover, and It seems that I can only see the surrounding
mediocrity, the poverty; the fact that everybody seems to be walking
around with no real destination, without knowing who they are or what they
want…
And
now too many cities live in fear! Fear of others, fear of the unknown,
fear of being scared!
Fear
of fear!
Is
it a generational issue??
Did
the world change or did I change? Am I capable of still seeing the world and
what it has to offer? Or am I blinded by time, old age, incomprehension
of new ways and the fact of belonging to another generation?
What
happened to our dreams of happiness for an equal society full of life and
aspirations? We were supposed to reach the NIRVANA, this “imperturbable
stillness of mind after the fires of desire, aversion and delusion have been
extinguished.”
What
happened to the spirit of the sixties? When we decided to rebuild the world for
total harmony and total understanding of others! We were working hand in hand
with the older generation using their knowledge while they were using our
vitality.
My teachers, in university and in theater, were so close to us, we
were friends, companions, and dreamers together. We made plans to bring balance,
equality, dreams and happiness to society.
No conflict of generations came into
this collaboration.
But the
sky has changed sky… I look at my youth and I see myself…I no longer am that
child full of rage…I do not want to murder the truth any more, I want only to
look at a possible truth…
Truth?
Truth of what? Of the creation of imagination? Of the unfinished fantasies?
Forty
five years have passed since this total opening of mind….Forty five years? Did
wisdom take over? But does wisdom leave an after taste of bitterness on the
truth?
Does
the older generation become bitter with time? Bitterness of having wisdom
ruling everything and no room anymore for invention? Is that the reason why so
many people like snow, snow covers the bitterness of the truth?
My
youth you are far away now, lost in inconsistent memories, the memory of the lost
senses, but for you I hold an affection full of wonder…
The wonder of seeing
that you are no longer, that you are built by life, shaped by the look of
others.
You
too, my youth, have disappeared in the fog of life, in the path of what we call
existence, you became another recreated by others…but my youth you are
present in me all the time and I never dismissed you from my thoughts , my
desires to go on , my tenderness to you.
My
youth can you again remodel the world if I call you back or is it impossible
for you to return now because of the new conflict of generations.
Can the
conflict of generation prevents some to have both? Accumulated knowledge and
the desire to go on?
.
But
the conflict of generation is now a dangerous animal and a creator of chaos! We
live in a bizarre world where it seems that the abyss between generations is
much deeper that it had never been in the past …
It seems sometimes that we are
living side by side and not in the same world, two parallel worlds with opposed
rules, almost opposite expectations.
I
have memories of my father's generation and while we had definite differences of
taste, different ways of looking at many things, we never behave aggressively
towards each other or were in denial of the knowledge of each other…
On
the contrary we were using the knowledge of older people, we were looking for a
sign from them to share, and they were not afraid or intimidated by the
new generation.
The
young generation was looking at the old one with respect, desire to learn from
them and sometimes even with admiration.
The older generation was looking at
the young one with affection and protection and the hope of discovering new
things created by a new world.
Today,
it seems that everything is based on being young!!! A singer of 32 is becoming
too old to start a career, a conductor of 40 is considered “dépassé”,
a director of 45 is a joke…
If
you are in any profession and beyond 40, you are considered dangerously
stagnant and seen as unable to function with imagination, you become
suspicious or are even pushed away, not to say destroyed.
Knowledge
is becoming a handicap if it is based on real knowledge and most of the time
the transient invention is the only admired way of being.
Everything
should happen as if the old generation was already mentally dead, nobody wants
them to think, to create, even to be existing.
They
should be sitting on an armchair in a retirement home looking thru the window
at the emptiness around them and smile beatifically at the new generation.
They
should be looking at the nonsense of their life, and smile thinking back to their
successful youth 45 years ago, no actually 15 years ago…
They
should only contemplate at what is gone for a long time in order to justify
some individuals and their ambition to become number one, or they should simply
deny their own existence by falling silent.
They
must live in this denial, they have to accept that now it’s over and the
surrounding new generation knows better.
And
today the old generation looks at the young one with disdain, sometimes with jealousy,
refusing to accept the new needs, rejecting the new freedom in so many aspects
of life.
The
positive astonishment at new ways is replaced by denial.
Pretending
all the time that the young people know nothing, have nothing, believe in
nothing, and are just the product of the internet and social media that are
guiding every thought, every move.
They
are only interested in their phone, their silly music, the image they want to
project on others, and the insistence of having everything as fast as possible
without really deserving it, and then throwing it out before the complete
integration.
According
to the old generation, the young one has no culture, no morality, no sense of
belonging, no tradition, they refuse the basics of honor, think only about
money and adventures, only about silly pleasures, ephemeral and easy successes.
According
to the old generation they should go back to the school of life, they should
learn how to behave in public and in private and they should put their ambition
and their head together.
It
seems that both generations in general stay away from each other for many
reasons: Feeling that they have nothing in common, believing that older people
don’t connect with today’s needs and young people have no experience of needs,
uncontrollable disdain of experience and fear of the unknown of today’s life.
Yes,
we have an incredible conflict of generation…Is it because we are between cultures?
Is it because we have not found our new place in the difficult world we are
living in? May we hope for better days when the old and young generation will
hold hands and sing together about the beauty of life, the meaning of being,
the joy of sharing?
Will
we reach a stage where the young generation will not dismiss the old one and
the old one will not look at the young one with a smile of disdain or even
disgust?
Knowledge
has to be respected, and young minds have to be admired!
Imagine
a world where the knowledge and experience is used by a young mind with his
energy, invention and sense of discovery?
Imagine a world where the invention is guided by knowledge?
