Generations Question and Push

    Our third child had names that were different, not the norm. I received pushback about these names, first and middle names, from both my father and my firstborn, a daughter. So, we added a name that made sense to both the older and the younger generation. This was in the late aughts of this century.

    It has been a decade and a half since then; I am grateful that the older and younger generations, older and younger, are still alive and kicking. They have different opinions than me, like back then with the naming of the child. However, the additional name may have helped the boy, now old enough to know a lot, and the generational squeeze may have been the best thing for all.

    Who knows? That is how it played out.

    Today, in 2024, we have some bad things going on in the world, beyond our closer problems and issues: climate change and environmental decline is one constant. But there are more pressing immediate matters, like a few million people in Gaza who are displaced and painfully perishing, there are millions fighting for their existence in Ukraine, there are terrorists creating mayhem in places like Moscow, Iran, and dozens of other countries. We know the United States is a constant target.

    There are ideologies, some of them religious-based, but not all, that are extremely threatening to the common society of us human cultures today. Yes, ISIS is bad, as is the Taliban and other Muslim extremists. They will not stop. Israeli extremists are proving dangerous now more than ever, and obviously the Russians, as always. China, Iran, North Korea has extremist governments and practices, plus a dozen or more demagogues and dictators, scattered across the continents. Authoritarian regimes exist in South America, Central America, Africa, and Asia. Plus Europe, if we consider the continental giant Russia.

    We have multiple problems and endemic challenges in the United States and North America. Crime, poverty, greed, moral issues. Mass shooting, drug abuse. Lots of freedom, perhaps too much of it.

    Problems of economics and government exist everywhere. Sickness and nutrition prove challenging to all people. Mental health.

    

    My older and younger counterparts give their complaints and bemoan their ineffective hopes against it all. We discuss, and I provide solutions or possibilities, many of which cannot be accepted or agreed upon.

    So be it. 

    Each generation must go through its fights and struggles. This who we are, this is what we are.

    As Americans, we are especially gifted and blessed at having stakes and options in these issues. We pay taxes, we vote, we voice opinions, we share information. We are free to share and we do influence others, hopefully for the better.

    We will get better, we will improve. There is reason, or reasons, to remain hopeful despite our ruinous and awful worst aspects of human tendencies.

    We will be better, every generation. So grateful that I can communicate, commune, and converse with mine.

    I love where I come from and I love where we can go.

    The older, the younger, and me in the middle. For now.