I think I mentioned this elsewhere... I was born in 74. My memories go back to about 1980 and just impressions of anytime before that.I however, being born in ’66 and have never felt a connection to ANY generation am confused as to where I fit in best. I can’t relate to the boomers and feel that they are to blame for many of the problems we have today
So I grew up in the age of Reagan. I grew up in Italian/Irish/Mexican neighborhood in Chicago. My America is Ronald Reagan's vision for America (which is why watching that America devolve to today's America has been such a demoralizing process for me). I remember my friends and I thought our parents' generation of Hippies (though none of us regarded our parents as being hippies) were utterly frivolous and indulgent. I don't recall mass media trying to label us as a generation until the 90s when they came up with Gen X.
One of the more humorous things I recall is our recognition that these Hippies in America and Europe were deliberately trying to scare us with the constant invocation of nuclear war with Soviet Union and trying to get us to think that America (Reagan) was going to provoke.. which just seemed totally absurd. So not only did we think they were frivolous and indulgent.. but stupid too.
My family moved to a suburb by the time I was ready to go to High School. so I lost contact with my childhood friends. I don't know the evolution of their thinking. I never connected to the suburbanites I met at High school. So I've never felt generationally connected to anyone.
I've always been fascinated by history... a lot of that interest was driven by End of the World stuff.. my mother is a big horror film fan.. the majority of my pre/near-1980 memories (the impressions) are the nightmares I had from having watched Halloween, American Werewolf in London (the first movie I ever remember having seen at a Drive-In), the Shining, Exorcist, the Omen. My mom had a copy of "Late Great Planet Earth" that I found in my bedroom's bookshelf.. around 1980, so I was like 6...
So I always had this notion that history , the present , and the future were going along according to a plan. What the plan was, I recognized , was open for debate.. but that no matter what, there were certain things that mankind would be fated to experience.
Speaking as a Christian... my religion's worldview says that Human Nature is flawed, that we are doomed on our own , we are fated to not survive in the long-run but to self-destruct. But that by faith and adherence to will of God, that fate could be averted. Now I dont expect anyone to agree with this. I am not saying that this is how the world actually IS. I think that's how the world is, but I realize I could be wrong.
I do know that our Founding Fathers did think along these lines and the post-Revolution founding of America was heavily influenced by this thinking. There are many writings by many of the founding fathers and pre-Civil War writers that America will end when it (it = the people of America.. not the Government) rejects the Bible.
So I formed my own historical model that links the demise of America with the history of the world moving directly from that to the End Time era (meaning the End Time happens after the demise of America as a geopolitical power)
It wasn't until this decade that I became aware of the Islamic world's view of these things, and they have their own perverted expectation and the world today is totally in line with those expectations. So the Islamic world is preparing for their expected End Time actions (to go on a global Jihad and win the world for Allah, the world community of Muslims led by their Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus as his right-hand man )
I read Clash of Civilization in the 90s... the world moving from Cold War to the "Bloody Borders of Islam" is clearly the proper description of the world.
John's Generational Dynamics has the world's various civilizations falling into a synchronization that has them all about to enter Crisis.
Despite all of these things which form my thinking , I do always try to reevaluate what I believe and why it is that I believe it. I remember being dismissive of Osama Bin Laden in 1998. It wasn't until he blew up our embassies in Africa that I realized that I was wrong in ignoring him. (it was then that I read Samuel Huffington and began by plunge into Islam).. (As an aside, my religious theory for End Time has led me to reject the typical American Protestant "Left Behind" scenario and instead has led to my current theory in an EndTime that describes an islamic Antichrist from an Islamic empire as being the enemy of Israel)
To me.. nothing reveals the TOTAL FAILURE of the leadership of America today more than our country's inability to recognize the severe crisis we're facing from the Islamic world. I realized around 2006 that if the American Government, 6 years from 9/11... 5 years of warfare in TWO Islamic countries... is still clueless about Islam.. it's NEVER GOING TO GET IT.
And the only rational explanation that I was able to come up with for this failure of the minds of the people in leadership (after all.. if I can learn all this crap about islam from my bedroom.. surely these people can).. is that it's a Spiritual problem ... or Mental Illness.. but since Mental illness cant really explain how stupid they are.. it's something intrinsic to our Human Nature.. which is why I say it's spiritual.
John says its Generational.. a consequence of Human Nature and the Nature of our minds. And I agree. I believe all of this works together... which to me , strengthens my conviction in all of it.
This post has taken me about an hour to write and it sort of took the twists and turns it did as I was writing it, I really don't remember what my actual original point and intention were...