caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the last word On Thursday, I posted the following to the Sublist in response to a post on how different generations are reacting to this tragedy. "Maybe we're wrong about this, being young, but it seemed to us that we (GenXers, or whatever you want to call us) have more of these defining moments of tragedy than other recent generations. We have so many images burned into our brains; Challenger. Oklahoma City. Columbine. And now WTC. When I close my eyes I can see the twin plumes of smoke from the exploded space shuttle; the kids running from their high school with their hands on their heads; the fireman with the little dead girl in his arms, just as clearly as I see that plane smashing into the building over and over again. I know the generations before us lived through these events and others, just as bad; that there are those who saw all these and Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassinations, Korea and Vietnam. But it strikes me that we've seen so much, that we've had all these images branded on our consciousness so immediately and directly via television, and all before many of us even hit thirty. How will that affect the world in years to come, as we gain positions of power? We saw the Wall come down and the Cold War end, and we saw the World Trade Center collapse in a shower of dust and paper. How can we reconcile these wholly disparate images and form a cohesive world view? We've had our fears of nuclear war fade (a fear I remember best forming my elementary years, but as a vague notion, not a defining one); we've seen no war up close but Desert Storm, where we accidentally killed more of our people than the enemy purposefully did. We don't know what it means, to live with the fear of invasion, of death falling from the sky. We've lived instead with the fear of disease, of our children's safety in their schools, of drugs and gangs. Our fears are immediate, are home-grown. Wars and bombs happen on the other side of the world, and we send supplies and money and thank God it's not us. How can we make the decisions we will have to make?" This has caused a spate of posts, mostly by one person but with some supporters, basically telling me that I have no appreciation for the horrors lived by previous generations, that we're not the first to face the threat of disease, that others have lived through so much worse, so much more, etc etc. But that's honestly not the point I was making. I was responding to a post talking about the differences in reactions in the various generations that have witnessed tragedy. In our generation, it's been one thing after another, it seems like, and that will necessarily affect the way we go about things. I realize that older generations have seen all that we have and more besides, but does that somehow negate our pain and shock? And we have yet to make our mark on the world. Most of us are still trying to find our way in a civilization that becomes increasingly confusing day-by-day. Witnessing so much in such a short time will without a doubt affect the way we decide to run things when it's our turn. I think that's a valid observation. But in response I get "you didn't see Pearl Harbor, world war, depression, Cold War, blah blah blah." Frankly, I get enough of that from Grandma. We can never, ever convince her that because her life was so horrid, that we don't have it easy. I will concede that yes, we have it easier than she did. We didn't have to go out to work at 12. We didn't have a father who beat us, I don't have an alcoholic cheating husband. We didn't live through the Depression. But, that doesn't mean that what we go through somehow doesn't count. On a larger scale, that's what I gotten onlist, too; that if I talk about the pain my generation feels, I'm somehow belittling that of the older generation. I don't know how to explain otherwise. I only have my own POV. I can and do try to understand others' viewpoints, but I can only have my own. I certainly wasn't trying to say their POV's are less valid than mine. Conversely, by giving me that impression, they're managing to completely toss aside the feelings we might have because their experiences have been so much worse. I haven't been rude to anyone, haven't sent flames or "go to hell" messages. I generally run on a pretty even keel and am more likely to be the peacemaker than the stirrer-upper. But when some oh-so-condescending person responds that I "seem upset" by the conversation, it makes me want to just stomp on them. Damnit, I am upset, and I think I have reason to be. No one can tell me that how I feel is wrong. It's how I feel. It's not like a fact, which is wrong or right, or even an opinion, which may be based on faulty reasoning, untruths, or prejudice. It's just how I feel. Okay, on to other things. I'm not going to worry any more about people who have to get the last word and convince you that their suffering is worse than yours. On a more cheerful note, I went to the AAUW book sale this weekend and was very successful. I went by for a little while after work on Friday, when it was $2 for hardcovers and a dollar for paperbacks, and picked up a few fairly new hardcovers -- two Sparkle Hayter books, the latest Inspector Monk mystery, and a couple of others that have slipped my mind -- and a few paperbacks, including To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is an absolutely wonderful book that I didn't own yet, and a couple of that trashy J.D. Robb romantic suspense series that I'm currently addicted to. I went back on Saturday, when they half their prices, and picked up stuff that I didn't want to pay a buck or two for, but at .50 cents a piece was more appealing -- books for YMB, including the rest of the Fudge series by Judy Blume, Sam the Minuteman, which he's already started by himself, a couple more hardcovers. Then yesterday, yes, I went back again. YMB and I had to get out of the house for a couple of hours so Blue could get some uninterrupted sleep, and we hit that before we did McDonalds and the grocery store. On the last day of the sale, everything is $5 a bag, so I filled up on trashy paperbacks, more kids books, some hardcovers I wouldn't have even paid a dollar for, child-raising self-help books, etc. And YMB had a grand old time when I told him he could pick out whatever he wanted from the kids table. Star Wars, submarines, and sharks. I spent probably $50 total, and got maybe $500 worth of books out of it. 'Course Blue was a bit bemused that I had purchased more books before I'd even finished unpacking the ones I have, but then he'll never understand that acquisitional need I have for books. He likes to read them, but doesn't need to own them like I do. And he really doesn't get buying a book that you know you aren't going to read right away. And I just can't explain it. On Saturday afternoon, we all went to YMB's first soccer game of the fall. It really is a whole separate culture, this soccer-mom thing. It was fun, though, watching the kids. They're young enough still that even if they lose they have fun and aren't crushed about it, although I can't speak for the parents. We had a blast watching the goalie for the other team -- whenever the play moved away from him, he was back in the net dancing, jumping up and down, wandering around. And when he did manage to block a goal, which he did by the simple means of falling on the ball, he had this look of transcendent joy on his face, like he'd just won the World Cup or something. Even though his team lost, after the game he went running up to his dad and said "That was the best game I ever had!" I hope he keeps that joy in sport as he grows up. So YMB's team won, despite the fact that very few of them remembered to play their positions and instead wandered up and down the field, which made YMB very happy even though he never even found out where the other team was from. Gotta love 8-year-old athletes. Yesterday evening QueenV called from Long Island. I'd talked to her briefly on Tuesday, but not long enough. Yesterday she seemed to have calmed down some, but it must be so much weirder trying to go back to normal there than it is here. She was telling me about the fighter jets flying regular patrols and aircraft carriers off their shores. And she knows so many people in the military, through her school connections and her internships, that she's afraid it's just a matter of time before she hears something terrible. Which, sadly, is probably true. But she seems to be coping, which I am grateful for. She takes things so to heart, and can be so paranoid and pessimistic. She seems to be dealing with all this better than I expected, but said she has felt very trapped on LI all week, not surprisingly. I can't even begin to imagine. This morning I spent the drive to school trying to explain about Islam and Judaism to YMB, whom the Dementors have indoctrinated Catholic. They've done very little to make him aware of other cultures and faiths, and his knowledge of WWII comes from the Indiana Jones movies, which I still think he saw far too young. He does, however, ask very perceptive and intelligent questions which have thrown me for a loop several times. This morning he wanted to know about Israel. He knows about it from Bible stories, but nothing about modern Israel and how it came to be. I did my best to explain, but found my own knowledge sorely lacking. I did, I think help him to understand that not everyone thinks the US is the best place in the world, and that lots of people have valid reasons to be "mad" at us. Maybe it's help him put some of the things he's heard and seen in context, at least. It's so hard to know how much is too much for him, and so easy to forget how very young he is when he's discussing things so perceptively. 10:26 a.m. - 2001-09-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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