But there's no beep before the dialtone

We're so thoroughly postmodern that it's killing us all, Generation Y. I've been doing a bit of thinking on the topic after a good conversation with one Matt Lucas, and after listening to one of his Wednesday talks in which he attempted to set out the problems facing college students. You see, we're all searching for something - call it what you will, but for this discussion I'll use the term fulfillment (it also goes by such terms such as meaning and purpose).

Ours is a generation that has grown up with the effects of America's cultural revolution; the philosophies of the Baby Boomers have been unconsciously embraced and become implicit assumptions of our collective zeitgeist. The experiences of the 20th Century have caused us to reject outright the Modernist notions that all things are possible through human innovations: if the First and Second World Wars shaped the ways that the Depression generation (our grandparents) viewed human nature and the value of work, then the loosening of morays in the 1960s and the resulting dissolusionment that our parents' generation faced in the '70s & '80s shaped our formative years like bricks on a wall. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and those giants stand on the ghosts of prior generations.

Think about the major events of the late '80s and early '90s ~ AIDS, the drug war, the Challenger explosion, a soft economy and less jobs for the first time in thirty years. Young parents are grappling with raising children while trying to understand and explain an increasingly complex world to their progeny. The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s changed views on the family and marriage, leading to increased divorce rates. Generation Y has grown up thusly in this environment - unstable families and quickly shifting culture defined by the materialism of their parents, all with an Existential philosophical underpinning.

These two markers lead in turn to our reliance on peers to guide our understanding of the world as we develop our own personal worldviews, and with our Relativistic doubt of anything not instantaneous or tangible. Relationally, we crave deep and meaningful connections to other human beings; we want to be fully known and accepted, and yet we doubt that such a thing is possible in light of our experiences with human relationships.

Women search for fulfillment in their careers, or pour themselves into a man to find meaning. Men seek the next person who will provide them with passing comforts, while shunning an emotional connection. All routes lead to further frustration and apathy with the concept that relationships can be anything other than selfish and fleeting. We hurt others and are hurt in return. The scars are deep and lasting, and we develop a calloused demeanor to the undulations we encounter on the path of the heart.

Community is increasingly dissolved by the rapid pace that advancement takes - we are users of technology and are shaped by it instead of thoughtfully considering how it changes our relationships. Our SUV's get bigger in response to our inability to feel safe and at home in our lives, and horsepower becomes a new conversation of angst between people in a rush to get somewhere else they don't feel right in.

What is the answer to all this pain and ugliness? I'm learning through all my mistakes and flaws that it's a community dedicated to meaningful relationships. I still don't think that we can ever arrive at absolute certainty on this side of perfection, but I'm clinging onto this one hope. I'll tell you about it over coffee if you ask, but it's not something I share unsolicited. It's the way I roll.

This is why we love art and music and literature with a healthy dose of confusion and mess and pain. It's why I love noise and post-rock and Death Cab. We see ourselves in the struggle, and it's good to know we're not alone. Cause you're never alone, and this is chapter one.