Douglas Coupland - Generation X
It's not healthy to live life as a succession of isolated little cool moments. «Either our lives become stories, or there's just no way to get through them».
We spend our youth attaining wealth, and our wealth attaining youth.
The only reason we all go to work in the morning is because we're terrified of what would happen if we stopped.
All looks with stranger became the unspoken question, «Are you the stranger who will rescue me?» Starved for affection, terrified of abandonment, I began to wonder if sex was really just an excuse to look deeply into another human being's eyes.
Our parents' generation seems neither able nor interested in understanding how marketers exploit them. They take shopping at face value.
Home is like one of those aging European cities like Bonn or Antwerp or Vienna or Zurich, where there are no young people and it feels like an expensive waiting room.
Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long.
When someone tells you they've just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they're locked into jobs they hate; that they're broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they're fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It's profoundly depressing. And the worst part of it is that people in their houses don't even like where they're living. What few happy moments they possess are those gleaned from dreams of upgrading.
When you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your vauses and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.
We spend our youth attaining wealth, and our wealth attaining youth.
The only reason we all go to work in the morning is because we're terrified of what would happen if we stopped.
All looks with stranger became the unspoken question, «Are you the stranger who will rescue me?» Starved for affection, terrified of abandonment, I began to wonder if sex was really just an excuse to look deeply into another human being's eyes.
Our parents' generation seems neither able nor interested in understanding how marketers exploit them. They take shopping at face value.
Home is like one of those aging European cities like Bonn or Antwerp or Vienna or Zurich, where there are no young people and it feels like an expensive waiting room.
Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long.
When someone tells you they've just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they're locked into jobs they hate; that they're broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they're fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It's profoundly depressing. And the worst part of it is that people in their houses don't even like where they're living. What few happy moments they possess are those gleaned from dreams of upgrading.
When you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your vauses and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.