Those crazy nights I do remember from my youth...

Love, civil disobedience, and the strange idea that we would TALK to each other...

It’s true. Gen X is completely different than Millenials or Gen Z.

“We’re Vikings to them,” said one of my Gen X friends who is on the older end. I’m on the middle to younger end… I think. Born in 1974.

We lived in a world without iPhones, grew up before the internet, and had never heard of the concept of “safe spaces.”

(I have a Gen X frenemy - someone I don’t really like and who doesn’t really like me but we pretend to like each other on the rare occasion we meet in the neighborhood - who wisely said, “There are no safe spaces.” Well, they were right about that. But what disasters the illusions of safety can cause!)

I was working on a post about lineage: “I know you because I knew your Master,” to continue the Star Wars threads. That got me to thinking about an old friend who is still a good friend, and another old friend who is still a good friend, both of whom were friends at Yale.

We were Star Wars fanatics. We believed in the Force, in the good side. Two of us believed in God and I think we both still do (right?) One of us was that fairly common species, the Jewish atheist.

We took on Yale’s administration in support of the unions, put on an action that put the “civil” into civil disobedience, and lived happily ever after. Well, mostly.

Over the years we’ve argued about this and that, sometimes had more distance, sometimes less. One of them was angry when I left the labor movement and I can’t remember which one now. What I do remember is that the bonds we formed in those days are unbreakable, and they were formed through this thing that seems to have been lost to the younger generations…

TALKING TO EACH OTHER.

We did that. Radical, I know. But how else to pass the time? We didn’t drink much, never did hard drugs, and there’s only so much sex you can have, even in college. Without games, the internet, live streaming shows, and texting, there’s really nothing left for it but to talk to each other.

I wonder what it is that the younger generations find so frightening about us. I see videos that say it’s that we “just don’t give a f*” but I venture to say we do. We do care, a lot, about our families, each other, the world, our communities. Hey, we didn’t destroy it yet.

There is a kind of intensity that comes from talking, face to face, in person, no phones, no distractions, just you and the other person interacting. We took that for granted, but it seems to exist very rarely now. A few weeks ago I messaged someone who was literally six feet away from me. I didn’t want to bother him, you see, by talking.

When we planned our sit in, we talked for hours and hours and hours and hours… I could go on but you get the idea. We had to get everyone’s agreement or else it wouldn’t work. And we believed in discussion, dialogue, disagreement. We believed in arguing until you get it right. Argument for the sake of heaven as I have learned from my rabbis.

We argued to find the right way to do things, not to hurt each other or to destroy each others’ reputations. (Well, usually.) We also argued because it was fun. It was fun to argue about something important but it was more fun to argue about things that were completely unimportant (looking at you my brothers from the YPU.)

We never stopped talking. It seems from the moment we woke up until we went to sleep, even when we were “studying,” we were talking. We talked at meals. We talked over coffee. We talked in the library (but not in the quiet rooms! We were good kids that way!) We talked while we walked.

Once I became and organizer, one of my catch phrases was, “Have you tried talking to the workers?” That also meant listening to the workers, obviously. It meant engaging. Not messaging. Not writing flyers or coming up with posts. Actually engaging, preferably in person but on the phone (which we used before text) to talk.

I talk with my Gen X friends, and my older Millenials, several of whom have come out to me lately as identifying more with Gen X. Welcome aboard, young friends! You were always with us anyway.

We got through hard things because, like Lando says in Rise of Skywalker, “We had each other.” Those bonds aren’t built through documents or posts. They are built through talking.

Every generation thinks the ones younger are hopelessly lost, but I don’t think that. I think that Millenials have discovered a kind of being kind to each other that is real, wonderful, and that we could benefit from. My three favorite supervisors ever have been Millenials. Kindness is a good thing. Some bad things may have become of me without the kindness of Millenials. Sounds like a play…

I am fascinated by Gen Z. Those I know are probably among the most extraordinarily fabulous of their kind because I met them through Elis for Rachael. Their commitment to justice, love and all that is good, and their willingness to fight for it, is beautiful to watch. I also notice that they talk to each other and to us old folks too.

I try to drag people into conversation. I can be annoying, I know. I will fight for the power of the spoken word to solve problems, build relationships, and change the world.

I’m also a huge fan of Trader Joe’s gummy candies, but that is neither here nor there.

I miss talking without people looking at their phones. I miss talking without a video screen, talking over coffee. I miss looking into real people’s eyes. It’s so much fun when I get to be with people in real life, which happens more these days than it did for quite a while. There is a reason why we still call it “real life.”

That’s a black-eyed Susan, isn’t it?