Pitfall generation
The Jonesers
A Generation that Fell through the Cracks
I recently discovered that I fall between Generation X and Baby Boomers. I had always considered myself Gen X, as I identified more closely with this age group than I did Boomers. Douglas Coupland, who wrote the definitive book on Generation X, was born the same year I was, in fact within a month of each other. Yet, I see we are now identified as Generation Jones, the micro generation between the two, 1954–1965.
Jonathan Pontell came up with the term for a Politico article in 2009, which shows how far behind the times I am. He was referring to the archaic phrase, “Keeping up with the Joneses.” He says our generation has this deep craving to have been part of our older brothers’ and sisters’ time and it took us longer to realize those ambitions. He looked around him after Obama won the 2008 election and saw that two-thirds of NATO and EU leaders fell within this micro generation. Our time had arrived. I kind of missed out on that too. All I remember was being stuck in a deep recession brought on by a housing collapse.
I’m not sure I buy Pontell’s argument but he claims to have “an avalanche of attitudinal and behavioural data [that] corroborates this distinction.” He says our generation is driven by a “practical realism” that allows us to better solve the world’s many problems. This was almost 20 years ago and that evidentiary support hasn’t held up too well. The problems still exist, although our micro generation isn’t entirely to blame for them. We inherited them and have since bequeathed them to those that have followed us. Most of today’s NATO and EU leaders are X’ers and Millennials.
Generational divides and conflicts are a tricky thing. I remember in my younger days we didn’t identify with Boomers. We didn’t know what to call ourselves but we for sure didn’t want to be one of them. They were always preaching, making us feel small for not being as idealistic as they were. They claimed our music sucked and that no one could compete with the Beatles. Typical Big Brother/Big Sister stuff. Probably why I hated the Beatles for so long.
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Coupland didn’t come up with Generation X until 1987 in an article for the Vancouver magazine. The best I could do was find this article written 20 years later reflecting on that experience. At the very end of the long piece, in which he tells how he came to work for the prestigious magazine, he finally mentions the article that got the ball rolling. More of a boast really, as he got a $22,500 advance from New York’s St. Martin’s Press to write a book on the subject and four years later Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture appeared in bookstores across the country. Thus our generation was christened or so I thought.
I missed that book. I was in Peace Corps at the time (guilt trip perhaps) but I did read Microserfs (1995), which I enjoyed very much. It was all about the minions working for Microsoft at the dawn of creation, kind of like those apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Coupland didn’t actually work for Microsoft but he gave a very real sense of what that experience was like. I don’t recall much of it other than they were all woefully out of shape from the erratic hours and eating junk food. Some fitness freak joined the group and beat them all into shape. I took from the book that our age group had pretty much adopted a laissez-faire attitude toward everything.
I had also been reading Whitman and fell upon the phrase “I loafe and invite my soul.” Peace Corps had made me a bit more idealistic in my view. I had gotten 5000 USD in return money so I was in no hurry to get back in the “rat race,” as we called it then. I remember scolding my parents for using too much water, which was a premium where I had been stationed in Lesotho. My Dad laughed at me and said maybe I should find some work. Eventually the money ran out and I had to find work, which greatly eased his anxieties. He felt I was wasting my youth reading books and scribbling notes I had no use for.
I had no special craving to keep up with the Joneses or anyone else for that matter. I had hoped I would have a book of my Peace Corps experiences to peddle to a publisher but hadn’t gotten past innumerable notes written on yellow legal pads. One thing I did learn was how to type. My mother had clipped an article from Readers Digest on How to Learn to Type in 14 Days and sure enough I did. Not very well, but I was banging away on a Brother Word Processor I had bought for 400 bucks. Much cheaper than a Macintosh. Still, no great book like George Packer had written about his PC experiences in Togo, which my older sister had mailed to me.
It wasn’t like I felt inadequate. I just couldn’t seem to maintain my concentration on any one specific thing. My mind tended to wander all over the place. Still does, but after raising a family with my dear wife Daina, I feel like I have found some peace in life if not full creative satisfaction. I still keep trying to come up with that first novel.
I shouldn’t project my own shortcomings on an entire generation, or micro generation in this case, but I don’t think we Jonesers ever quite lived up to our potential. Sure, it was great to see Obama become President, a fellow Joneser, but that was more about fulfilling Martin Luther King’s dream than it was uplifting our selfish generation.
Jonesers are always being compared to their predecessors, which is a bit unfair given what they accomplished. I think we got too caught up in materialism, judging from what I see my college classmates post on facebook, and lost sight of the bigger picture.
I look at my kids and see far more potential in them than I ever saw in myself, which is the way it should be. Mercifully for them, I don’t preach. I give them their space, help them out the best I can, and hope they will better navigate the road ahead than I did.
