Close readers of this personal blog may have noticed my most loyal comment poster of late has been my cousin, Dan. It seems to be difficult for Dan and I to agree about anything much, but our mutual respect remains high.
Growing up, we were arguably each other's favorite cousins. We are the same age, and our parents' first post-war babies. We have always shared a wacky sense of humor, and a penchant for self-education. We both grew up with loving parents. (Mine are gone, but his are my only surviving uncle and aunt.) We both had older and younger siblings, but his were males and mine were females (which just might be a clue to how differently we have turned out.) He lost his little brother Gordon last year.
Back to our parallel lives, we both served our country, Dan in his way (military) and I in mine (Peace Corps.) We're both Dads; we've both suffered broken marriages. Now we are reaching the age of reflection, looking back on our choices, our accomplishments and mistakes, not to mention our regrets, always the hardest things to process as we age.
Recently, I proposed to Dan that we coauthor a book, as representatives of our broken generation. Whether we took Dan's path or mine, we Boomers remain in a state of unresolved regret, and yet in an endless state of hope.
As our generation retires, and dies, the urgency of documenting this dichotomy intensifies. What do you think? Please let me know, either privately or in Comments (below). Thank you.
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4 comments:
David,
I'd love to add a comment here, but you explained it so well I wouldn't dare.
Looking forward to some feedback, too.
Dan
David, I think that such a book is a tremendous idea because 1) your ability to be introspective and at the same time relate it to the rest of us is well documented; 2) combining efforts with another could only add to the insights. If you are able to illustrate exactly what you point to: "state of unresolved regret, and yet in an endless state of hope" it would be extremely useful for just about anyone. Tamara
Thank you. My sense is that in our generation, we are all halves as opposed to wholes. The choices we faced were so drastic, each of us had to rupture in two. Although for a while, we may have adhered to extreme positions, most of us see the validity in the other's opinions. Since the way I think is to write, I'm perhaps more inconsistent than most. At a given moment, I can seem wildly leftist, and the next, contradictorily conservative. The truth, I suspect, is I'm both, and probably we all are. An epiphany would be to realize we no longer need to choose. It's okay to embrace positions all along the political scale. Who's keeping store? Probably the worst ideology I've experienced personally (having missed the Nazis and the Stalinists) is the politically-correct left. There's an irony in those who strive to be "right" in this way. This comment has grown into a ramble. Maybe I'll repost it as a blog entry, also...
I`d certainly buy it!
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