The Lost Generation

One potato, two potato, three potato, four. 

Summer nights lying on the grass, after chores, with a bowl of green grapes resting on stomachs. The stars slowly brighten across the darkening sky. The last generation to witness their pure beauty. Yes, real stars before satellites littered the sky, invading and diminishing the light of imaginations.

The last generation when children played outside in the evenings, hiding, seeking, finding, running. Free, free, free! Until one mother popped corn and placed it on a porch for grabby hands and buttery lips to devour. The last generation of ollie, ollie, ox, and free. A hider racing to the light pole, with breathless determination. And “it” sometimes would find and expose a hider, and the light pole would be tagged, and the name and place of the hider would be yelled out to all players. Evidence is important. The found one would sit on the curb waiting their turn to be “it”. Consequences.

I one potato my Grands. But instead of the last fist being “it”, they are the winner of the non-game. They just enjoy the cousin circle, putting their little fists together to see who will be left solo.  No hide and seek on the street under the street lamps. A fenced backyard is their playground. 

That feeling, that joyous innervative reaction. That simple, uncontained joy that bubbles up inside until… limbs involuntarily dance, feet twist, spinning bodies embrace. That sensation that invites,  no demands, movement, leaping, twirling, cartwheels, pirouettes, and somersaults. The unrestrained movements as hands clasp hands in London Bridge and ring around the rosy.  What is this? Oh yes! unadulterated joy even in a small backyard.

On warm evenings, the hose rains down until the Grands drip, with laughter. On a blanket, taco, cat, goat, cheese, and pizza have become the favorite game. Their laughter hangs, then floats, then streaks across the heavens in an unbridled moment of childhood. Like watching falling stars, this memory is to be savored when they age out of grandma time.

Take three Peter Pan leaps. Noni, may I? Yes, yes, you may. 

Time to Learn

And in those moments, there are also occasions of loss and lessons learned. Sometimes tears are shed, tempers flare, cheating occurs, and feelings are hurt, but that is life. Winning or losing a game does not equate to winning or losing at life. Or it shouldn’t. The best time to learn about winning and losing is in childhood. Tears are a sign of frustration and big emotions. We all have them. It is a language we must learn to interpret and understand.  Tempers need to be addressed and managed.

Cheating is a hard lesson to learn. Some never understand that to cheat is not to win; it is fake. Not everyone will win at every game, and if you insist on doing so by any means, you cheat yourself. When you win through cheating, you secretly lose more than the game. You lose trust, respect, friends, and family. It is difficult to learn these life lessons. No doubt you all know this. However, there is some evidence that some never do. Some never accept that even in Neverland, there are boundaries, rules, fairness, accountability, and consequences.  

Once upon a time, bikes, stingrays, and 10-speeds represented freedom. Children were first allowed to ride up and down their street. Then, once they showed responsible riding, they were allowed to ride around the block, then throughout the neighborhood, to school, to the store, stopping at the railroad tracks to flatten a penny. Soon, they rode all over town without limitations. Every day held potential for a new adventure.

There were consequences and accountability. Broken arms from riding three on a bike. No playing, biking, or swimming for months. Carelessly riding over sharp objects, flat tires, and no bike.  Dry, broken chains taught bike maintenance. Crashing meant loss of freedom, not because of parental punishment, but because you crashed your bike. Parents didn’t just replace toys. One had to wait and hope for birthdays or December holidays, do extra chores, or learn to repair through trial and error.  Unless you were unfortunate and faced the consequence of no consequences. A disservice to you and everyone in your world.

The Special Ones

You know who they were or are. The different ones, the special ones who, with no effort or remorse or sense of gratitude, got new toys, bikes, undeserved good grades, or brand clothes. They learned lessons, too. If they cried, stomped their feet, yelled, screamed, threw tantrums, bullied, pouted, lied, cheated, they were placated just to get them to stop, to shut up, to go away. 

Life often includes playmates who are so frustrated that they decide the aggravation of watching or listening to whining, screaming, and bullying just isn’t worth it. “Just let them win.”  Eventually, no one wants to play with them… unless they hold power, prestige, or privilege. As the special ones age, they turn friendship into fear. Their tricks for winning and cheating are refined, polished, and perfected into a means of manipulation and control. Some bad sports are caught up in detention, school suspensions, and expulsions. Some impatient parents, with financial means, send their children to boarding schools. “Just let them learn there.” Other parents with limited funds enroll their teens in the military.

Sometimes the forced structure works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes they learn even more inappropriate ways to win, cheat, and exploit.

It is evident today that there are business leaders, politicians, sports figures, religious folk, and neighbors who have not been held accountable. They never learned how to lose gracefully. They never accepted losses. They deflected their defects. They blamed others or situations. They accused everyone else of cheating or lying. They never learned how to be a team player. They become pathological liars, believing the words spewed forth with spit from their vulgar lips. They cheat. They lie. They steal. They throw tantrums. They abuse and use people. They lack character and integrity. They win at all costs. They remove their opponents strategically. They surround themselves with minions who bask in the shadows of belonging and blindly believe in the fake narrative of the special one, until they are cast off, sacrificed, fired, or forgotten. Life lessons. One can learn that it is never too late to grow up, show up, and own up. Until it is too late. 

Most humans believe that most of us are good people. It is hard to continue to believe in one another when our social exposure has been filtered and limited to what the rich and powerful want us to see and believe. We are constantly exposed to hate, crime, and ugliness. It is to their benefit to keep the masses confined to their backyards. It is easier to control the narrative. And certainly, many of us have witnessed brutality, if not in real life, then in TV dramas, movies, and music. To believe that we are not influenced by what we watch is convenient, but a lie.

Influencers

Covid taught us many lessons. We learned much about ourselves. Many, while isolated,  found distractions like Tiger King. What influenced our perspective? Ozark. Our interactions with real people, new or different ideas, and thoughts diminished exponentially. We became isolated, fearful, and alone. We became more dependent on spoon-fed information just to make some sense of our existence and purpose. We believed because we trusted in those who did not deserve our fidelity. They still don’t.

Once the epidemic abated, some recognized freedom’s frailty and became more selective about whom and how they spent their time and who deserved loyalty, consideration, and attention. Work became less relevant to the way of life that many had envisioned. Experiences became a gift. Authentic connection became paramount. 

Unfortunately, the isolation seems to have affected communication skills. And even now, years later, many continue to remain hidden between the lines of text and emojis. Reestablishing relationships is proving difficult. Our social skills have diminished.  Our civility is deficient, as road rage, Karen encounters, mental health crises, expose the underbelly of our humanity, our character, and our integrity. Just who the hell have we allowed ourselves to become?  Who have we allowed to influence our perspective on our country and community?

One lesson, if one decides to do an internal investigation,  is to question the influencers we expose ourselves to. And to deny that you are being influenced, well, get over yourself, unless you live under a rock, but you don’t because you are reading this. So, consider your choice of influencers.  What is their motivation? Who benefits from their perspective? Why do you find them credible? Is what they say congruent with how they behave? Are they self-trained actors? Are we choosing to “let them win” because they are the loudest, the most published, the most confident, the richest, the most powerful, the most attractive, the most educated, the most seen, the most heard? Are we easily influenced? Have we allowed someone to have power and dominion over our humanity and dictate our values? After all, everyone is still capable of learning life lessons until you’re, well, dead.

Discovering Our True Community

Slowly, we are finding our way back to communities. Communities of choice. Or are they? Are they communities of habit? Communities with shared values? Are they communities worthy of our time, effort, and commitment? Are we taking the easy way, the familiar, known, safe, and comfortable spaces, or are we being more intentional to evaluate who and how we spend our time? After all, today is not just one more day of our life; it is one less day of our lifetime. Do we really want to spend our energy with people who are constantly living in the illusion of impression? 

Those planted firmly and honestly in the ground have, to me, embraced the important stuff. Moments of lying on the grass with a bowl full of grapes, gurgling with the joy of a good, honest life. A life of work and play, but also a shared life with those we value. A life full of rich experiences. A life full of discovery and learning. A life lived in the present. A life of not placating the bullies of this world, of not tolerating those manipulators who have to win no matter what. Many no longer choose to “just let them win” to keep the peace. Because it wasn’t peace. It was and is complicity.

Crybabies need to learn the lessons of consequences and accountability just like the rest of us. Let the game be forfeited, if need be. We can walk away and expand our own backyards, inviting who we want to hang with. And that doesn’t mean only hang with people with the same opinions. Just the opposite. We need to expose ourselves to those of differing opinions and thoughts. Not in a combative way, but in an inquisitive way. We can all learn something from each other.

We can tag our lamp posts and call out to those who have been caught, because we see them, we know where they hide. And if they learn to play fair, invite them to join, because everyone wins when we treat each other with dignity and respect. The last generation to experience living stars need not be the lost generation following falling stars.

Search the night, ignore the satellites, and find true north.  Neverland still streaks across the sky.  

One potato, two potato, three potato, four. You’re it.