A geração quebrada

We are broken.

We are broken people.

We are lost. A lost generation adrift. A lonely mass of women and men. A simple and diffuse existence without aim. We are not aimless. We simply lack the will, our backs broken by chance, by fate, by whatever present discontent or transcendence, to do our whim. It was surgically removed by years in a classroom, a meeting-room, a dying room. The sun doesn't know our name. It has never met us. We know no poetry, we know no ideas.

We are talent. We are skills. We are operatives in a bloodless nightmare of networks and projects amd perverted nomadic dreams.

We are loveless and lifeless. Our jobs are simple mandatory tasks, put together to massage our over-educated brains and convince us that arrogance will drive us further. That our fellow people are not kinswomen and kinsmen. They are competitors, they are vultures, they are adversaries that must be broken. In doing our part, we sealed our fate. We are doomed to despair because we think it sprouts from our fellow eyes. So we stab each other. We drink ourselves to death. We fall into hazy coke traps. We make each other miserable, cheat on our lovers, laugh at others' misery. And then we accept that. We tell ourselves: "people do shit like that". We get used to picture ourselves as cruel beings. We get used to believe cruelty, to worship cruelty and sacrifice friendships, platonic loves, solidarity in its altar. We compete for attention and use big words to forget the world. We "seek opportunities" instead of sharing cups of tea with our parents. We "look for career development" instead of feeling the afternoon sun in our skins. It is our shared destiny, to be convinced that our nature is dead. That our common human goodness is sterile. That we are all little assassins looking for a target, telling ourselves that each person must fend off for herself. We are fateless and bondless.

We are broken hearts in a broken world. Checking our moons our stars our comets, we take strides to seem disaffected. We are a disaffected generation, loveless by omission, stranded in a land of no return.

We are told. We no longer tell. We are daughters and sons and granddaughters and grandsons of grand people who knew how to tell stories of glories past. Firewood enchanted them. Spending hour upon hour beside the fireplace, telling stories. We are storyless. Past forebodes substance, and such baggage we cannot tolerate. Not anymore, in the world of no extra weight. In the world of presentations. In the world of suits and eternal smiles and networking efforts.

We are empty people. We are tearless. We are slowly slouching towards a megamachine. Crawling, we stroll towards fate. And a fate of white hallways, loud clubs, ominous meeting rooms and watercoolers awaits.

We are the ?-less generation. We are not Y. We no longer ask Why. W-H-Y. Simple words beckon us with their weight. They weigh us down and make us seem simpler, of times past. We only ask How. How much? How should I? How to do this and that?

We are a weightless generation. Gravity has forgotten us. We no longer have walls, rents, cars or lifelong dreams. We no longer seek the stars. We no longer want to be astronauts, firewomen, archaelogists, scubadivers or somesuch fable. Our gods are now consultants. They are investment bankers with overarching egos. They are specialists, artists with convertible wisdom, superstar DJs with rolling playlists. Our gods no longer wear white cloth. They wear suits. They tell us that we have tried and failed.

We are a dreamless generation. We don't believe in the Matrix, but it believes in us. Its machines have sought our souls and found our Promethean fire. They have tried to break our dreams, but found us devoid of dreams, devoid of hope.

We are a lifeless generation. We merely struggle. But our struggle is not a fight. It is not a battle. It is simply a kneejerk reaction. We no longer know how to be poignant. We are pathetic, ridiculous and hopeless. We work without work. We live without life. We love without love. We make do because it is what our career requires. We no longer have callings, but options.

So we're broken and we dwindle.