GYPSY and Generation Y

[Kyle Weiss]

Also, in that same realm (re: white-collar expectations) I cannot recommend this book enough. It's a disturbingly fun jaunt of a man's life through work, his viewpoints and ideas personal satisfaction, skill, labor, education and even God.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Moron-Niall-Brennan/dp/B0000CIH5O

The funny/disturbing part about this book is viewing through a window of the past to a legacy of people who we now see after a generation or two working toward their children's future demise. Kind of a societal-algebra thing. We know the answer, and maybe what "A," and "B," are, but...what's the value of "Y?" Wonderful read. The guy skipped around to as many jobs as I have, it seems, has similar "education," and really found simplicity to be the answer to his satisfaction. The only difference between the early 1950s when this book was written and today? Softer beds, better resolution on our screens, and higher prices to support it all.

8)

 

[Vito]

Also, in that same realm (re:  white-collar expectations)  I cannot recommend this book enough...  

http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Moron-Niall-Brennan/dp/B0000CIH5O

8)

Apart from your recommendation, Kyle, I'm inclined to read it just because the lone Amazon review calls it "politically incorrect". :mrgreen: 

 

[Kyle Weiss]

It's only politically incorrect beacuse it was published in a time when the concept of "offensive" was far less shallow and harder to achieve.   It uses terms and concepts not fit for the modern mind (...though I wonder if it was fit for the time it was written either--the truths and realities are stark, and relevant very much so today...).  

Brennan talks about "morons" in the classic sense, as in, "simple people," and there's not one tinge of insult or hierarchy.   The talks about God in simple terms without grandstanding or apologizing, and as it relates to him only (for the most part).   The most fascinating part is his conclusions when he's doing everything from working in union shops, small operations, department stores...and found some of his most enjoyable jobs were those where he used his mind little and his body a lot.  Not that he didn't have a mind, but that it wasn't being left to do nothing to worry about petty things "normal" people get caught up in while working.   He truly feels the "morons," the simple folk, the mentally lacking--are better at doing the kinds of skill-less jobs required of a modern world that most people are forced into doing, and these true "morons" (the good kind) do it better.   Brennan is almost saying he has found a way to make a moron out of an average man, which he has done for himself, for the good and sake of it...for sanity, clarity and more intelligence.  

Why did I buy the book?  I liked the title and cover art and the title, and it was $2 at Goodwill.  It blew my mind.   It probably did poorly because it did too fine a job telling it like it is (as it's still plenty relevant today) and shoved in the faces of too many people that could be criticized their own reflection.   Can't smear someone's own crap on a plate and expect to open up the next McDonald's (that requires a whole new way to serve different sh*t and get people to keep coming back  :lol: )

Veet, you'd dig it.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.   I was thinking about lending my copy to Yak to read.

 

[Vito]

...Veet, you'd dig it.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.   I was thinking about lending my copy to Yak to read.

Is BoB evolving from the Box Pass to the Book Pass? :mrgreen: 

 

[Kyle Weiss]

<img class="emojione" alt="?" title=":shrug:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/emojione/assets/png/1f937.png?v=2.2.7"/> I ain't gonna complain if it does. :lol:

I still read. Real books. Made with paper. *gasp*

 

[Anonymous]

Idries Shah said that the universe was constantly directing a stream of learning into creation, and that it's mostly absorbed & assimilated by the simple people, who don't have themselves so distracted by other concerns they block it.

I noticed when I was a kid that simple people had better lives -- had real feet on the real ground, & truer responses to what life brought them.

I wasn't one of that kind, so I did the next best thing : found one & married her. Best move I ever made.  

:face: 

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Idries Shah said that the universe was constantly directing a stream of learning into creation, and that it's mostly absorbed & assimilated by the simple people, who don't have themselves so distracted by other concerns they block it.

I noticed when I was a kid that simple people had better lives -- had real feet on the real ground, & truer responses to what life brought them.

I wasn't one of that kind, so I did the next best thing : found one & married her. Best move I ever made.   

:face: 

Neat.   :heart: Mrs. Yak...   I did similar things in my realm, quite by accident.  Funny how two poles of the magnet work, huh?  

My friends range from the utterly simple to the utterly complex.   The simple ones let me grandstand, pontificate and go off, and usually they say something, ten words or less, totally out of the blue, that absolutely floors me.   Takes all kinds.   I have gained just as much from them as the more intellectual, but with the latter sort, we sift through all sorts of communication and conceptual fog before we come to any kind of resolution.  

Simple people are ideal holidays in company, at times.  

Like Brennan, I had some pretty "lowly" jobs.  One of my favorites of all of my jobs was a kitchen dishwasher.   I didn't have the skill at the time as a cook, so I worked with a Guatemalan man of few words, even if those words were Spanish.  I learned enough Spanish to have good conversations with him.  He took pride in his job, fixed the dishwashing machine himself (often the company didn't care, go figure), and said he enjoys thinking about nothing in particular except what mattered.  God, his wife, his son and his daughter, and the work he did for them.   He paid me the best (paraphrased) compliment, in broken English he learned from me,  "Kyle, you good, you smart, do anything, you smart to care about me plates, like me...you stay with me, por favor."    Apparently I won him over.  This meant more to me than kissing the bosses ass and making another $1.25/hr on top of minimum wage to be a prep cook.   So I stayed.   At 16, I didn't have much, but I had that guy, and a pretty Zen job.  

Funny, I just realized I've already put together why I differ from my generation. Different paths, no blame. Different conclusions about things (takes a while). C'est la vie.

8)

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I'm still in a state of (perpetual) quandary about my generation, and some waking thoughts occurred to me this morning. I may never be satisfied with the state of folks my age, or the reason, but one of my only outlets to deal with it is to take a pedestrian approach and study it.

I'm delighted with the concept that there might have been some fine-tuning of the current mindsets of my peers for which I complain. I've never given a full pass to the "Boomer" generation parents (or thereabouts) that may have rebelled in one disturbing trend against their parents (The Greatest Generation), which tended to adhere to a stricter and simpler guideline (this is just a guess, but a damn good one, if you ask me).

There's one problem: as a victim, one has a choice. They can accept their role as a victim, and follow that path, or they can refuse to be a victim, and follow a different path. Sometimes that choice is made for them, but society is far from this perfect. In fact, in the last 10 - 15 years, by my observation, it's getting sloppier in its presentation of "Utopia." We've gone through how many years of fear from terror, economics, statistics and the-other-side?

When I was in less-than-ideal circumstances in my teens, I met up with quite a few kids on the streets who were homeless for a number of reasons. At least half of those were rich-kid runaways. "Dad wouldn't get me a beemer." Sounds cliche, but you'd be surprised. So, homelessness, drug usage, squalor with all the trimmings--what a perfect punishment from child to parent, especially those with some blue-blood in 'em.

Once in a while, reality would get to one of these homeless rich kids, and they'd realize what a gift they've been given. An opportunity for an objective viewpoint (sorry, Veet). Something different than the processing-line mentality they had endured and absorbed for years. Reality started creeping in.

I've been blesses with two very important skills, perhaps from birth: observation and critical thinking. I might not be good at much else, but with those two things alone, I got a very early start in watching what was wrong around me. There was my choice, information. I don't consider myself particularly brilliant or intelligent, but I am open to information. I soak it up, I retain it. I sift through it sooner or later.

Why do I have this obsession with my peers and generation, anyway? Because they surround me. They make decisions for me. They make decisions about me. They often think they have things worked out in their misery, and when it doesn't go their way, they look for someone to take it out on. If I can tell the difference, so can they. At least a good number of 'em, anyway. Therein lies the choice.

"I'm just a person, getting along in the world, doing the best I can."

"I'm exalted, and if you don't get it, eff you."

Being a victim, I've decided long ago, is not acceptable. I doubt I'll get anyone else to see this besides myself, and that's okay. I do, however, think there's a point where someone who has lacerated themselves in the leg in the forest should take action. Yelling "Help" until you bleed-out and die isn't survival. It's entitlement. Stuffing a handful of leaves in the wound, wrapping your belt above the injury and doing something about it...even if you do manage to die, it isn't out of expectations.

So do I blame my generation? No. No I do not. I do, and will, criticize them, however, I will make it incredibly clear how stupid I think many of them are, and I will refuse to participate in any poisoning of my own method to line up with theirs. It may make life tougher for me, because we'll be speaking an even more foreign language, but I'll manage to collect a few similar to myself along the way. I'll be the person I want to see around me. Not by declaring it, but by living it, working at it and proving finally, to myself, I never deserved anything but what I earned. And it'll be something worthwhile so long as I take breath: prepare for the worst, hope for the best. The real definition of "optimism."

http://www.values.com/inspirational-stories-tv-spots/99-The-Greatest

Boy: I’m the greatest hitter in the world!
Strike One.
I’m the greatest hitter in the world!
Strike Two.
Hmmm.
I’m the greatest hitter in the world!
Strike Three.
Wow…
I’m the greatest pitcher in the world! Yes!
Music: Celebrate good times, c’mon!
Super/VO: Optimism…Pass it On. A message from The Foundation for a Better Life

(...not the lies of "say it enough, and it becomes true.")

 

[Anonymous]

(...not the lies of "say it enough, and it becomes true.")

Spot on, Bro.

But there is a bit more to it than the

I am the captain of my fate
I am the master of my soul

and Sinatra's silly ass

I did it MY way !

It's not the kind of thing you can "see" by reading about it, which is only what it looks like after the unimaginable complexity of it all has been dissected into a few tidy abstractions, and these arranged into congruity with the dominant assumption set. Saying it doesn't make it true, but imagining it, and holding that imagination, can connect some unexpected dots.

1) While thumbing through the old stamp collection the first wife's grandfather had put together, I was struck by how flat-out neat some of the little comic opera republics must have been that sprung up during, & in the aftermath of WW I in the former Russian Empire. That interest functioned as a kind of astral connection service that, prompted an innocent "hunch," led me to write to a guy (via an ad in a stamp newspaper) who was, unbeknownst to me at the time, the world's foremost authority on these. And via him to a guy he referred me to with the specific interest I had settled on by then, and from him to being a member of the British Society of Russian Philately. I just followed the yellow brick road to a destination I couldn't have foreseen.

2) A couple years after my first orchestra job, my dad offered to pay my way through graduate school. I laughed and said (off the top of my head) that I'd probably do that, but someplace worthwhile would be impressed enough to give be a free ride. At the time, that wasn't on my radar. But inside of a year (be careful what you ask for), I was starting graduate school at Carnegie Mellon. On their dime (pretty unusual at that time and, probably, still).

3) There came a point later where I'd just had a terminal case of the ass with the classical music business. Commuting back and forth between Western Yaksylvania and Washington DC over route 30 through the ancestral mountains I knew and loved, I started pouring my heart out to whatever you want to call the benevolent, sees-us, hears-us & loves-us aspect of creation. In the course of trip after trip, I prayed that I wanted out of cities, out of the music business, to get back to Yaksylvania permanently, and to live there, out in the country, with a stable job that wasn't going to disappear to Mexico or Indonesia (anybody could see that coming in 1980). It became a restless obsession. Fast forward a couple years to a union job in the sceptic tank of the state juvenile system. NObody (myself included) could have seen THAT coming. But you know what ? It dotted all the "I"s & crossed all the "T"s. Airtight congruence.

4) While this was going down, after a couple of years spent recovering from a grotesque marital mistake, I started wondering if there was a girl next door type out there who was on the same page with me, sharing the same values & tradition. One day, while driving, I found myself talking with a voice that I heard in my heart. It told me she was out there, and the general direction I'd find her in. It explained that she'd been through some equal-and-opposite marital **** herself and was one scared kitten. But not so much she'd lost hope. She'd been looking for me as hope-against-hopefully as I'd been looking for her. But there was a condition : absolutely zero insincerity. There was only one possible answer : "Sure !"  A couple months later, a mutual acquaintance introduced us.

There's more, but four's enough. If you're not going to believe those, you're certainly not going to believe my using visualisation to turn a 23-year-old's embarrassingly scraggly excuse for a moustache into a Neitzschean showpiece over the course of six months. Or the rest of it.

Not arguing.

Just sayin'

:face:

 

[Tate]

Ah Gen Y, my generation.  

I have some thoughts to contribute to the problems of the latest generations.  I believe very strongly that most of the "attitude" problems we see in Gen X and Gen Y stem from a fundamental shift in how people view judgement.  As it is with so many social trends, the pendalum must have swung too far and so the backlash began as near as I can tell in the 50's and 60's as the hippies brought forth a lot of ideas about not judging people based on looks or income or conformity etc.  This soon flowed into the converging forces that brought about social rights movements, political correctness, and perhaps most of all an educational shift.

You see, suddenly it was bad to pass judgement.  "Judge not lest ye be judged."  Acceptance had become the name of the game.  The more accepting you were, the more noble you must be.  The more judgemental you were, the worse a person you were.  Now in the beginning I don't think this was literal, but I think it started to become literal.  In the late 70s and early 80s, schools and education systems started to shift from "what can you do" to "can you get better" and finally to "how hard did you try".  It was not okay to judge a student based on their work, only on their effort.  

This idea that judgement is bad became more and more pervasive.  I grew up surrounded by adults telling us that it was bad to judge people (on the left side) and that only God could judge people (on the right side) but the message came in loud and clear, you'd better NOT judge.  

Now with my adult eyes, I can see the trickle down effects of this attitude, as I'm sure others have noted.  We have games where we no longer keep score.  We pass students along by abolishing or ignoring standards (in some schools they have removed F for failure).  People are often personally attacked if they attack someone else for a personal or financial choice.  

In my view, the effect on the average Gen x/y baby is negative.  They have lost their ability to objectively and subjectively look at people and say, "This is good." or "This is bad."  Without this fundamental power, they are perpetually in a state of inability to make high quality decisions.  Lots of times the coping mechanism for these inabilities seems to manifest itself in a shift of the locus of control.  It has been mentioned a lot earlier in this thread, but I think its important to understand why it is happening. For instance, if you look at a criminal and say, "Wow, that guy made a bad decision." it could be viewed as a judgement.  Thus you must think in different terms... "Wow, that bad thing the guy did was a result of external forces on him."  Thus you relieve yourself from having to personally judge someone.  Ie, less personal responsibility and a higher blame on large or nebulous entities.  Look at how many people blame/expect fixes from the government or corporations.  It is still safe to judge them as long as we don't judge people.  

All of this seems to have one final damning effect.  After these people think like this for so long they lose the most important ability.  The ability to judge themselves.  When we lack the power to look objectively inward we lose our base line.  You never know if you're doing good or bad.  You have no benchmark.  And then those net happiness/sadness graphs in the article linked make a lot more sense as does the reason why expectations are muddled.  

I don't think the younger generations expect too much or demand too much.  I think they've just lost the tools (thinking patterns) to make determinations of their relative positions.  And I think its because judgement is a dirty word.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Yakster...

...I'm not one to hook up to abstractions too often...they're a target template, once in a while (and at their best) but, no, adhering to them I don't. We all traipse in the abstraction-realm (we kind of have to once in a while) but the gaps leave no other method for getting across at times. For me, this is one of them. My only defense against abstractions in cases like these is recognizing (again, apologizing to Veet) objective possibility and leaving my adherence un-set and not glued in place.

In short, I get what you're saying, comparatively--but it doesn't enlighten my viewpoint of what I see as a current reality...I could abstract away thinking it more sane to say, "everything will work out." I know better. Maybe it will, maybe it won't--and it isn't in my power to turn the course, either. "Not my job." My job's a little closer to home, me and mine, etc. That's what I take solace in. I do, however, still have to live next to, work along side, hang out with and stand in shopping lines with that which makes my skin crawl. Dealing with that part of it is difficult. Watching some 30 year old gal in her workout gear running in place, stinking up the line with her vitamin water (so she doesn't lose heart-rate) with her iPhone plugged in to her ears, yelling at someone over her phone and not even managing to look at or talk to the guy handing her change and asking if she needs a bag. The world was made for her, to serve her, because she is the most important thing in her life. Perhaps everything is easy for her, and always was. Maybe, even she has it all worked out, because she's the one not bothered by what she sees as trivial things, things in which I find pertinent value.

One instance makes it a fluke, something innocent and weird to almost laugh about. A majority of interactions of different sorts, with the same technique and mindset, absence of reason and an increasing degree of laziness, that makes it a cancer.

"Money for nothing...chicks for free."

Dreams are dreams for a reason, they keep reality in healthy perspective.

I pity my generation, and envy the switch many of us shut off in lieu of mantra-greatness. I'm already something great by where I've been, but it bears no mentioning in public (perhaps with the exception of this instance) because there's always room to grow, ways to work, and get better. The results must be satisfactory--and that, in my case, they are. However, I'm working on my own template, my own scale. Therefore, it means nothing to the girl running in place in the grocery store line and making a rude fool of herself. She's the Zen-like one, not I. Yet, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts if I were able to sit with her, to break her down one-on-one and find out what her life was really like, I could put the puzzle pieces together. I'd probably be 98% right.

And none of it would matter. I'm the odd man out, not her. It's me not merging with traffic, because I've seen a different light, walked a different path, and played the cards dealt to me. Runner-girl is given paths. I took them as they came. That's a unknown, exciting gift to me, and a sad "fate" for her. I have worry, she does not. I have choices, she does not.

It's interesting to me, if not frustrating. The gal running in place in the shopping store line has no real effect on me, until she becomes my boss. Becomes my brother's wife. Runs for election. Gets given a business I frequent, a home next to me, or serves me coffee. Rinse and repeat. Many folks, many paths, same mindset. I'm used to being a pariah, but not like this. It's not right like this.

And my hands are tied. The so-called needs of the many, after all.

Observed, perhaps practiced, but not fully concluded,

8)

 

[Anonymous]

In short, I get what you're saying, comparatively--but it doesn't enlighten my viewpoint of what I see as a current reality

Of course, silly. It doesn't change them, at all.

Edgar Cayce had a dream once -- what Blake would have called a "memorable fancy" : He was in a big heavenly warehouse full of boxes that had been addressed to people, but they weren't being delivered because the recipients had gotten tired of waiting for them to arrive.

Idries Shah even entitled one of his books, "Caravan of Dreams."

The "simple" people who aren't so complicated by overthinking what often doesn't really matter that they're too preoccupied to grok what life is showing them sense that, on some level, "dreams" and waking experience are points on a continuum, or bands of the same spectrum. Your "uncivilised savages" certainly do. It's a sense educated out of people only with difficulty that still tends to persist, lurking in the subconscious until some stressful situation springs it (There are, proverbially, no atheists in foxholes).

The kicker is, you cannot approach this directly. Awareness of it is something that only shows up in the course of experiencing what it does.

OK. Dressing back up in Normal camoflage for smoother public relations.

:face: 

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Ah, but that's a good point. Some of what one might consider "simple" are the products that frustrate me. There's some really smart cookies in the jar that inevitably have been spoiled by too much handling at the bakery. They're soft, weak, expectant, fall apart at the slightest movement, far too much butter and sugar added to 'em to announce to the public, "...here comes good stuff." Ratios and recipes are all off.

Surrounded by it, questioned when I don't grab at it like a loon.

Yep, can't approach it directly. So, I have certain people to ping the ideas off, because...again, I'm the one in the trenches with the effers!

(Preferring non-normal camo, as always :lol: )

8)

 

[Anonymous]

Some of what one might consider "simple" are the products that frustrate me. There's some really smart cookies in the jar that inevitably have been spoiled by too much handling at the bakery. They're soft, weak, expectant, fall apart at the slightest movement, far too much butter and sugar added to 'em to announce to the public, "...here comes good stuff." Ratios and recipes are all off.

Those are the people, in Yakspace, that have been seduced into staring into the pool of Narcissus until they're mesmerised, mistaking the reflections they see in it for the realities it reflects.

Although that's a simple matter in a sense, they themselves are far from the simple people I have in mind, who grok that the pictures in their heads are just pictures, and most of what the complicated ones take to be life is what they fanitasise about it, sleepwalking through the realm of tangibles lost in abstractions.

Takes one to know one.

Yak, you think too much.

:face:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Fair assessment. Tough for me to get a handle upon, but I'm seeing it the best I can from over here. Truly.

Sensory overload, in my case with what's around me, I suppose. Pointless comparisons of two machines that obviously weren't bought from the showroom floor, myself and "they." :lol: I wasn't designed for this arena.

By that, once in a while, I wonder if that was the purpose...

...might as well really dive into abstractions if you're gonna do at all, eh? :lol!:

Meh. Won't generally mesh with my peers, overall, but I ain't gonna take their crap, either. At one point I was giving an acquaintance (my age) some advice. Pretty basic business/personal stuff, and I could see him glossing over in happiness. Early on, I realized he was just happy to be getting attention, maybe find something he could use for his own gain. It was a very one way conversation, or so he thought, finding me, the vending machine of Help and Philosophy. I used it as an opportunity to hear what my conclusions sounded like when they came out of my mouth...often a different take when written down or simply conjured in the brain. Either I've successfully figured out a way to brainwash myself (not such a bad thing, better me than someone else) or I'm not as off-base as I wonder at times. Self-diagnostic, this machine checks out alright...at least one of us walked away better. :lol:

Such a silly world.

8)

 

[Anonymous]

The number of children and young adults suffering from major depression and generalized anxiety disorder has increased between five and eightfold since the 1950s. The suicide rate for 15 – 24 year olds has doubled, while the suicide rate for those under the age of 15 has quadrupled.

The rise in these mental illnesses is coupled with a decrease in empathy and an increase in narcissism in young people, indicating that their ability to work with others — as is necessary in a society — has been muted.

http://brothersofbriar.forumotion.com/t25224-one-for-jers-re-perspective#334754

:face: 

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I remember reading that, puts a different stint on the whole idea, huh?

Plausible. However, I think it's only part of the story. I truly think parenting and the generations of yore made a huge difference with these results, too. Couple that with the industry conveniently making more shoe-boxes to define things like "depression" and other labeled mental disorders (or new ones), it's really hard for me to say.

You know me, I start taking inventory of what is around me en masse. The root becomes just as important as the result, but neither alone can fix it or clear the air. Plausibility only gives a little insight, and as usual these days, it's super complex. More societal algebra. We have the answer, but what's the equation?

Authoritarian/police rule has never been something I've liked. And I see it just as often as the kiddos with the ego/depression cycles. Still, how did I, with my skewed view of things avoid it, with my innocence/ignorance learn through the garbage, and become so damn different? I'm not remarkable. Except perhaps in naturally living contrary to the status quo. I often wonder if I would have truly been "normal" 100, 200, 500 years ago... or if I'd merely be a contrarian to whatever the status quo was then, too. Hard to say.

Separating myself the best I can from my life and Gen Y from theirs, though, one thing is clear: it doesn't add up. It's irritating. And yet I'm subject to the same result as all of them, I just react to it mostly differently. Fortunately, my fascinating with it all keeps me sane in the mean time.

8)