Ever wonder where my generation has gone? I have wondered sometimes. We are like a generation of misfits who chose the migratory patterns of life for the foreseeable future. Most of the gypsy people and the bohemians I see are my age (or they are disagreeably old). Well, I found my generation. I wasn’t really looking for them, but I found them anyways. They travel constantly, searching for whatever they want, growing no roots, settling on nothing but constantly experiencing whatever they can.
I have been staying at a hostel in new Orleans with people from all over. It occurred to me finally that this is where we have gone. A generation of constant transition. I listened to the others sitting on the porch smoking something, teaching the recent additions about the sanctity of their smoke. I began to wonder if it was more than just weed. I concentrated on my pancakes as I listened to a girl laughingly convince her boyfriend to wait to have sex till she was done with the dishes and back in their room.
When I say transition, I mean more than just physically, or career-wise although that is a huge part of it. We either work at random jobs trying to decide on a career as our interests change, or we return to school because we obviously haven’t learned enough to make up our mind about life yet. But the lack of permanence runs all the way to our foundations. We have minimal permanent ethics, if any.
Now that I have discovered that bit of info, the next logical question is why we don’t have permanent ethics and if this is more so than other generations. I would love to consider my generation special, although this is hardly a specialty I can congratulate. Why is it so rare to hold fundamental Christian morals? It’s not like they even consider something sinful “wrong” cuz it is so common. These sins are not new, for there is nothing new under the sun. I only wonder why people don’t consider it wrong anymore.
I had decided not to walk around here at night. But tonight I got the urge to go find some good jazz. I did find some, it was amazing. It took a while to tear myself away from the sound. No music quite like good jazz. But on the same streets as the good jazz were every sort of bar. This is a weekday evening nowhere near mardi gras and I still wanted to vomit after seeing some of the night life here. Alchohol, music, dancing, prostitutes, more alchy, porn, strippers, weed, probably stronger drugs, everything. Sadly, most people seemed to be enjoying themselves. I even saw a young teen, walking thru with her family, looking a bit stunned. Possibly the worst bit, as I consider it, is the practice of having girls/women perform for the public. Sex or showing off for one’s own enjoyment or for that of your love is one thing. But selling that part of you, whether it is actual sex or just exhibiting, destroys something in a person. It is never worth the money, but I doubt most of those girls ever heard that before they enter the work. Surely they could choose some other work, or depend on someone else? Do they even have a choice or has that been taken away somehow?
Oh, and in the middle of it all, I found a few Christians standing around a cross in the middle of the street reading from the bible. They seemed like newer converts, easily blending in physically but for the matching churchy t-shirts. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they earned a wide berth from the passer-bys. Im pretty sure their crusade failed before it really began.
Everyone there asked me, “isn’t new Orleans awesome?” I vote no. Not everything is terrible, but it seems like the negatives outweigh the positives, even café du monde with its amazing coffee.
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