A short story from many moons ago.
Thinking about experiences and what makes me, well.. me reminded me of this story.
Cheers.
———–
The three of us sat around the kitchen table while the
rest of our group drank and watched The Craft. We
were the non drinkers.. each of us for different
reasons entirely.
Mark is a recovering alcoholic. He spent two months
in detox and it scared the shit out of him. He says
the detox program itself wasn’t what turned him
around. “The scariest part were the people.. I was the
youngest one there. There was this one guy — he must
have been in his 40s — everyone knew his name except
me… I made it a point not to learn his name. I mean
EVERYONE knew his name. I eventually learned that he
had been in and out of the centre for over 10 years.
I didn’t want to become familiar with that sort of
person and I really didn’t want to become that sort of
person.”
Loreen has spent her entire teenage life dealing with
alcoholism… friends, her brother, and father. She
has been a pillar of strength for Mark. I can see
something in the way they look at each other. I hope
they can see it too.
I, on the other hand, do occasionally drink. I am
very stingy when it comes to my emotions and
experiences. My theory is that once our life begins
we are given a number of Emotion Tickets — just like
ride tickets at the fair — and when we run out of
tickets…. Well… That’s it. No more emotions and
no longer are we able to appreciate our experiences.
So, I’m sitting this one out.
Loreen speaks.
“Ever wonder why our society always has to name or
label everything?”
“Classification is necessary,” I say, “How else are we
supposed to follow conversations? Our conversations
have to be efficient, we don’t have the time to make
assumptions.”
“Sure, but what about classification for the sake of
classification. Take, for example, Generation X. The
X has a special meaning for that generation –
uncertainty, etc. Who are we though? I’ve heard of
our generation referred to as Generation Y. Why?
Because it follows X in the alphabet? The letter Y
has no special meaning for us, so what gives?”
“Exactly.. it’s just journalists attempting to label
something they don’t understand. The public eats it
right up. Naming something abstract like that puts
restrictions and parameters on a concept that
shouldn’t be there. If they must give our generation
a name, it should at least be meaningful.”
“Did you have anything in mind?”
“No, not exactly.”
Marks eyes light up and he grabs a pen and some paper.
He writes:
PC Generation
1. Personal Computer
2. Post Communist
“Ooh! Good Mark!”
“Politically correct,” I add.
“Pro-Choice”
“Presidents Choice!”
“Pre-cooked?”
All are added. We make no judgements. After a few
more minutes of brain storming we round our list off:
7. Pay-Channels
8. Passively Complacent
9. Prozac Children
The drunken Allen had come into the kitchen to see
what all the excitement was about. Generally fitting
the dumb (and did I mention drunk) jock stereotype, he
wasn’t too enthusiastic about Loreen’s response.
“We’re trying to find a meaningful name for our
generation.”
Allen shook his head and and while he walked back to
the living room he said to us, “Man, you guys are
pretty crazy.”
Without a word between us, our list was finalized.
10. Pretty Crazy.