Pushing dustballs under the sofa hoping your mother wouldn't notice... for three days she lets it ride and then, as you're going out the door on the fourth day she hauls you back by the collar!

 

the pure pleasure of watching my little sister's face as my mother opened her closet door and everything came tumbling out....and then putting my skates on while my mother emptied every drawer and the entire closet in my sister's room....skating past her window with ice cream....yes....precious memories....:excited::excited::excited::excited::excited::excited::excited::excited::excited:

 

Well, having raised two sons who are extremely intelligent and technologically savvy (they didn't get the technological part from me though), they are also individuals who read and can hold their own while carrying on conversations about many varied subjects (that they did get from me).

I also think many of the members here in the "under age 30 group" are very intelligent and knowledgeable.

 

Oh no doubt,, but having intelligence and knowledge seems a waste if your going to be spending all your waking hours glued in front of computer screen being "bored".

 

Call it 'the demise of curiousity'.

 

That's true, but they're very active in the real world and are always doing new things.

 

Ah this is one of the reasons why I stopped doing such things as WoW.. spending hours and hours online with nothing tangible to show for it. No sense of real accomplishment. Life was whirling by and I had spent a goodly portion in front of the idiot box (computer).

Now I freely admit i am currently procrastinating from getting shit done.

 

They were never all that unique or different to begin with. It has nothing to do with generations. It's about personal experiences and more often than not about where you come from.

 

Being from a generation a few steps back from you, I can see exactly where the OP is going here.

It is quite irritating to see generation Xers more interested in the latest piercing or skin art, than they are in developing a productive lifestyle. This really started at the end of the Great Depression, the WWII generation vowed to give their kids every thing that they had lacked in the 30's and 40's. But they demanded less accomplishment for the rewards they gave them. I am a member of that first generation with over indulgent parents.

Each generation since has had parents who felt about the same way, to the point today where the last few generations have grown to expect that all their needs will be provided, first by the parents, then by the employer and last by the government.

This of course is a general statement, there are many notable exceptions, but our current mess with consumer and government debt can be tied directly to this idea that someone else will provide for me.

 

Every person has within them the potential and capability to be an interesting, well-read, diverse person able to hold cogent and coherent conversation on a number of topics. Each person has within them the capability to be interested in multiple things, and to be curious about the world around them. All these things have little to do with where they grew up.

Anyone can be an individual; all it takes is desire not to be homogeneous.

 

Just out of curiosity tenguy, since I happen to be one of them "gen X'ers" that enjoys skin art..
Exactly what were we supposed to have produced with our "lifestyle? If I work, pay my bills, keep a roof over my head, and food in my belly.. what else am I supposed to be "producing"?

 

I think that perhaps he would say that you are one of the ones who was not more interested in skin art than a productive lifestyle - after all, you've clearly had one, and contributed to society at least until the point where you stuck your arm in a pneumatic drill or something.

 

Well crushed by a faceplate.. but that's another story.
I am intensely more interested in skin art than producing something for society.. however, reality is, if you don't have money your can't chase dreams..
there is a very good reason why they are called starving artists.

Perhaps what is needed is a mass deprivation to remind people not everything you see in mainstream society is a necessity.

 

/points at stomach

Yep. Starving indeed. Design jobs buy me charcoal.

 

For most people though, it takes growing up in places where you're on the outside of that to reject it, so it has very much to do with where they grew up.

People who have easy lives are never interesting.

 

I disagree, to be honest. Plenty of people who have had lives relatively devoid of economic or social hardship can be interesting people.

You're essentially saying the entirety of the middle class and above are boring people. Talk about generalisations...

 

On the whole I think you're right.

I do have a smartphone, but only because it was free with my phone contract. Occasionally I'll use it to check my campus e-mail and make sure my class hasn't been canceled or to e-mail my boss when he decides that nothing is good enough again. But I love to read (there are so many books in my apartment I'm starting to think I need to sell some to the used book store), and am working on finishing two college degrees simultaneously on top of my job as a pastry chef.

At 24, I can look around and see numerous young people who are completely unmotivated, undereducated and uninterested in bettering themselves beyond this society standard of media-whore bimbos who care more about status symbols than personal growth. It's quite depressing really. I don't know when it started, and I can't exactly pinpoint when people from my graduating class started dropping out of college like flies... But this excessive laziness is not going anywhere good.

Most people my age make me feel rather ill.

 

Perhaps in some cases this is true... But I think it depends on your definition of easy...

Because if someone being raised in money makes their life easy... Then I disagree. My fiance was raised in a rather wealthy family in a good neighborhood, but his parents raised him to be thankful for everything he has and to work hard to achieve whatever he wanted in life. They also made him work for everything instead of just handing him everything. You can come from a wealthy environment and still be a well-rounded, educated and driven person.

 

You're not grasping what I'm saying. Interesting people are always the people who have been on the outside for whatever reason, who haven't had it easy. It is very rare to have somebody be interesting who has had an easy life. All of the bullshit that you see with young and even older people these days is because of the fact that they were spoiled and didn't have to really do anything. It's nothing new. There are 50 year olds like that, as people can see on this forum and out in the world as well.

It's more often about where you're from because when you're spoiled like that, you don't need to work at anything or become interesting. You don't need to do anything except live the life mommy and daddy pay for and then maybe find yourself a career that isn't for an actual individual. You're allowed to be deluded and think you're special just because you say so.

So yes, a large part of the middle class and above fit that description.

 

At that point, it's the parents' responsibility to teach their child to appreciate what they have been given and use it to further their interest.

If the parents - be they working class or upper class - foster their child's curiousity, their child will be an interested and interesting individual.