"Just Wait Til They Get to the REAL World"

Schizoposting dispatches from the "Real" "Growed up" World

I. A friend recently reminded me that “cope” does not exist. This is a good reminder.

II. Cope either does not exist, or it does exist but is some sort of essential human function of meaning-making, self-soothing, and retroactive narrative assignation that we all participate in, and is therefore meaningless to point out and even more meaningless to mock. To derive a sense of superiority over another when you catch them…coping…would be like making fun of someone inhaling air just because you happen to be on an exhalation in that same second. You’ll be there soon, so no reason to point and laugh at the “oxygen gulping fat ass who just can’t stop munching on air.”

III. Boomers get made fun of a lot. They are hopelessly confused and outgunned by the rapid technological shift of the last 10 years. Teaching them to update their Apple Watch requires 600 preliminary lessons, both mechanical and ideological, that are so far engrained in our core subroutines that they become almost impossible to teach; too remedial to even remember, too automatic to provide sequential instruction, too basic to verbalize. It would be like explaining how you pivot on your left foot when someone calls your name as you pass by the open door of their office. Could you teach that pivot? You could show it to me, but could you teach someone how to do it who doesn’t understand? You couldn’t, I know you couldn’t, you know you couldn’t. How do we know? Because Michael Jordan was a terrible basketball coach, and you’re not Michael Jordan.

The thing is that those of you who are younger than boomers would fair no better. You know this, there is no need to prove it. It’s obvious that you would be just as lost, just as stressed, just as frustrated, because to say that you wouldn’t be means that you believe yourself to have some sort of preternatural intellect that outpaces all of your peers. To feel superior to the boomer for printing out each of their morning emails means that you believe that you would not do this were you their age. To be that ignorant and solipsistic is far more cringe than a boomer not knowing how to turn their ringtone off during a meeting, even after they have been called five times in the last three minutes (or - more likely - they think they are getting called but their alarm is going off).

Oh, you wouldn’t do that? If you were 71, you would know how to turn your ringer off, eh? Lemme guess, you also would have saved Jesus instead of Barrabus, you wouldn’t have owned slaves, you would have condemned Cristobal Columbus the moment you read the reports from Bartolomo de las Casas. Yeah, for sure you would have done that. For sure. You’re just so ahead of your time. So ahead of your time, in fact, that I assume you have already freed all of your Amazon Echo devices, right? You opened the window and threw your iPhone toward the sky and yelled “run Siri, you’re free!!!”

Why not? We’re only 30 years from AI “lifeforms” from lining up at the DMV for their state ID pictures. Are you sure you want to be someone who used to be slave owner? God forbid you’re one of those people who knocked up their Roku or sold your Google Home to a friend in exchange for two large pizzas. You would never do that, would you? Of course not - you’re special. You’re better. You’re moral.

IV. There is an ever-growing list of things in society right now that can be called “things we all know are true but have to pretend that they’re not” Here’s just a sample of things “the culture” expects us to believe in 2024:

1. Vandalism and violence by young people is acceptable and does not require intervention nor punishment, especially if those young people are members of marginalized identity groups

2. Borders should be completely open, without regard to resource availability or political will.

3. Trump is “just as demented” as Joe Biden (the so-called “kindly old man who means well” and also “sitting president”)

4. Police protection is not needed and should be replaced by public servants who perform wellness checks and focus their efforts on providing important community services.

5. The number of young people who identify as trans/autistic/traumatized/suffering from ADHD/dyscalculia/generalized anxiety disorder/dissociative identity disorder is totally okay and it’s great they’re talking about it and also we should totally believe them whenever they say it.

6. Trigger warnings are necessary, good, and helpful. Without them, people would be routinely self-harming and suffering psychotic breaks after sessions of Dungeons and Dragons

7. Colleges and Universities do not have an outsized influence on society and do not mostly exist as a means of adult daycare or - at best - a complex NGO money laundering scheme.

8. Pornography is a net positive in society, and anyone who says otherwise is a slave to outdated and patriarchal sexual mores.

9. America is “more racist than it has ever been.”

10. The current cultural zeitgeist is working; people are happier, more productive, and kinder to each other.

11. People who lack certain identities are not allowed to speak on any subject pertaining to those identities, and also the job of identifying what subjects those are belongs to the people with those identities.

12. It’s totally normal that almost every commercial lacks depictions of people belonging to the most prominent race, gender, and sexual orientation (by far).

13. Voting works and we are active participants in the democratic process.

14. The US Military will grow stronger when it increases its diversity and recruits more operatives with social anxiety disorder.

15. Overweight people are as attractive as their slimmer counterparts.

And the list goes on. Now go ahead - believe those things. Do it! They’re all true!!

Can’t do it, can you? Not if you’re here. Not if you’re reading this. But if you’re my age, you feel despondence as you read that list. You feel some part of your hope that was trampled by a world that got hung up on a very gay version of manners. If you’re a Gen Xer, you might be able to take it more in stride, as you still cling onto the notion of “live and let live” (Gen X has a remarkable ability to persist in their belief that if they ignore something and don’t personally interface with it or subscribe to it, then it becomes a problem that exists elsewhere, unable to interlace with their life in any meaningful way. Which - to their credit - often works. But occasionally it catches up with them at some moment of extreme tragic collision, like when they’re suddenly ousted from a school board that is comprised of mostly people who they thought were their friends. Cause? They said “gypped” at the last meeting, and you can’t say that anymore. Nor can you ever have said that, or ever have even thought it was okay to say that. To their non-credit, Gen Xrs are very good at justifying backstabbing.

Don’t worry. If you’re offended by what I just wrote, keep three things in mind:

1. Generational comparison is not totally useless and false, but it is mostly useless and false, except for when it serves as a short-hand for some other typology that none of us can definitively put our fingers on but are nonetheless quite certain it exists.

2. At 40 I am a millennial which makes me one of the most agonizingly worthless and ignorant generations of all times.

3. I truly TRULY am not judging - as I’ve established…I would be the same way if I were born into any other generation. Including Gen Z.

I say all of this to set up a point. But before I do that, please remember once again that I do not harbor ill-will toward the boomer. In fact, I find myself quite sympathetic toward them as I get older, and sometimes feel viscerally angry at the way they are casually maligned for sport, especially because they (mostly) cannot defend themselves. Yes, I occasionally poke fun at them, but in that certain tender way we all poke fun at our parents or our elders. Like when my depression era grandmother used to bring mashed potatoes over in a used cool whip container and then ask for the container back the next time she stopped by. People who grew up in different times are funny and cute and idiosyncratic, and I don’t want to rob our ability to find joy in that ribbing. But I do not, will not, and am not saying what I’m about to say maliciously.

Ok:

V. Generally, the idea that one could ever be expected to believe any of the things from the short 15-point list I wrote above is literally beyond belief for the boomer. The thought that anyone could believe some of these things is strictly insane to them, and when those younger than them insist that - yes, many people do profess to believe these things and many of them are convinced that you should believe them too - that is what leaves the boomer slack-jawed and dumbstruck. Error 404. File not found. These fucking boomers cannot fucking handle it!

Hence, to “cope” with the unbelievable possibility that anyone can think that way, the boomer engages in repetitious political arguments that they repeat as mantras, like 109 “Om Nemah Shevayahs” but instead it’s 109 “Oh mygod Sheilaaas.” They must say these mantras, they cannot be stopped nor can they be rehabilitated. Not anymore than the woman whose son was stolen right out of the back seat in the Lifetime original movie - she can’t just stop running around and shouting “Daniel!!! Daniel!!! Daniel!!!!” over and over again.

I do not exaggerate or equivocate when I say that they must speak these mantras as a means to ward off evil spirits. You see: most of their mind will never be able to believe that anyone could actually believe it when they say that “all police should just go away.” But then another part of their mind - afraid that this could be true - feels a sudden urgency to “spread the good news” in the most oddly ineffective ways possible. This is why every major city has at least one soft haired boomer riding a bike with a sign taped to the back that says “DON’T VOTE TRUMP VOTE BIDEN TO RESTORE SANITY TO THE UNITED STAT” (they have a notoriously hard time with spacing).

VI. There is an engine inside boomers, a sort of furnace that - when at peak pitch - forces them to belt out wily extrapolations beyond the confines of belief or rhetorical structure.

Example: being mortally incapable of comprehending mimetic churn, the desperate boomer might fire off an explosive interrogative to the tune of “why can’t they make THAT viral, huh?” (In the previous sentence, the “THAT” usually represents some esoteric or highly generic political truism that carries very little in the way of intrinsic motivational potential).

Something in them, the part of them that does not understand why one idea takes hold in culture while another doesn’t, this thing inside of them feels like the truth of the situation is so obvious that they just need to repeat it three or four hundred more times until it finally takes hold again and PRESTO: sanity is restored. “Restoring sanity” is always a must to the boomer, like washing hands after pooping or closing windows before a storm. We had sanity, and then we lost it. Uhhhh….how about we find it again???

And so they say what they must say, because it is an ablution that must be attended to, and they say it with a gusto and fervor that reflects an extreme implicit confidence in the fact that …if…the right person heard them…in just the right way…and at just the right time, they would instantaneously book them for a cross-country speaking tour where they could stand before crowds and deliver their liturgy of precious scripture, including favorites like:

• “Well maybe if they weren’t busy with their tiktoks and twitters and twatters or whatever the hell they’re calling it now!!!!!AAHHHHHH!!!!!”

• “I guess that’s what he or she or he-she or whatever they are nowadays I can’t keep track!! Ahhh!! hahahah!!!!”

• “Hey I think Biden forgot to plug his brain in last night!!!”

• “What about when MLK said he wanted people to be judged on the color of their skin and not the content of their character!!!!”

• “Guess what, I identify as a glass of milk today!!!!”

…and of course the ULTIMATE boomer admonishment. The warning they will climb the highest mountain and descend the deepest depths of the ocean to speak to whoever needs to hear it, because CLEARLY people have not heard it yet. I’m talking about the one and only:

• “JUST WAIT TIL THEY GET TO THE REAL WORLD.”

The Mennonite Preacher Anslo and his Wife. Rembrandt (1641)

Pathetic. Makes me depressed to hear it. I mean that in every sense of the word. It is pathetic. Like a bird with a broken wing repeatedly trying to take flight from the pavement because it doesn’t understand what happened to its hollow bones. I am filled with such sadness when they say this. Because I know what you know. That this is the real world. The psychotic daycare world is not going to stop when they graduate. What workplace do you think will be able to stop them from taking an additional 20 minutes for lunch because they complained of “food scarcity.” Even the toughest middle managers’ knees would buckle in the face of the food scarcity trick. What does that even mean? Doesn’t that just mean they’re poor? Can you just tell a job that you have food scarcity and that gives you like…an auto-raise??

VII. They will continue to receive endless accommodation, their expectations will continue to plummet, their work will continue to be pushed outward to the other competent people who do not qualify for free salary due to their position on the progressive stack, and this will continue and continue until we get to the place that is so obviously where we are going to end up that I’m going to spell it out for you and you are going to read it and it will feel like it is too harsh and too much of a punch to the face and too much of a flirtation with something hateful that you will reject the organ but just before you do that STOP and consider this:

The workplace of the near future will feature a two-strata system a la the Time Machine: below ground will be men, straights, whites, and asians doing all of the busy technical work and up top will be black, brown, mentally ill, and queer people “playing work.”

I hate to say this because I actually think the people who are upstairs suffer a similar damning fate (though perhaps not as acutely painful). (Also strike the gays from this list of recipients of my generous sympathy, as they seem oddly complicit in all of this). How do I know this will happen? Because it already happens at my job. There is a great psychodrama to create positions that employ people who are miserably under-qualified to the point that they actually have no idea what is being talked about at meetings. They don’t even understand the base-level concepts required to use in the deciphering of the higher order issues. Like “teaching-someone-to-uninstall-and-reinstall-windows-but-they-don’t-know-how-to-use-a-mouse”-type thing. I know how this sounds - I know that it sounds like I’m calling them stupid but I am really not. I am saying they don’t have a fucking chance, even if they’re gifted. Many of these people are smart, but have unbelievably outsized confidence in their abilities because literally everyone is afraid to correct them. The reason for this is obvious: correcting them is career suicide, or at least a high risk maneuver with a roughly 33% chance of career suicide at any time.

VII. There is a mania to push people of color and gayness and fake disability forward in organizations without any testing or growth, slotting them in high level positions that they wouldn’t be ready for even with 20 additional years of experience, and then the whites and asians around them create a sort of movie set; constantly moving trip hazards out of the way, filling in blank spaces on reports, having them sign fake contracts, etc etc.

Maybe that sounds like business as usual - “we’re still the puppets pulling the strings muahhahahahah!!!” But actually no. But actually actually, there’s not even any puppet strings being pulled here anymore. For the first time in history, those in power (other than the notable exception of George Soros and other disgusting fucks like him) have yielded their power to those in the standard deviation of power below them, and they didn’t even get a reward or prize for doing this. I imagine that many excitedly prostrating white people who joyfully give up their positions and wages hit that dreadful moment when the smile is still plastered on their face and the streamers dropping around them celebrating Xanadu’s fifth promotion this month start going in Usual Suspects style slow motion just as they realized they gave up everything for nothing. They don’t even get protection; these people are cancelled just as easily as anyone else, and maybe even more often because they are in proximity.

VIII. This nursery school type facsimile of work is truly the worst possible outcome, because not only does it confer unearned benefits onto those who are in the “theatrical production of what work must look like,” it also leads them to believe that they have talents and abilities and competencies that they absolutely do not. Maybe not a big problem in the advertising firm, but how about the nuclear power plant?

VIII (continued, more nervously now and less jocular) But there is an intervening factor here that may actually catch up and destroy all of this before it really takes hold as a daily 9-5 matinee; there is widespread institutional rot that threatens to swallow the whole operation whole with only a few moments notice. If you work in any bureaucracy of any type on the planet, you can feel it: literally nothing works anymore. You report to no one. You have no rules, but can be fired at any time. Your deliverables are completely mysterious, and sometimes it feels like your boss works for you, and sometimes you are not their employee but instead something like their prisoner turned emotional support animal? Also sometimes you are their parent but NEVER THEIR SEXUAL PARTNER that is crossing the line mister. You want to have a strange oedipal dynamic with your lady boss? Fine - but it better never consummate!!!

You are their parent but also they can fire you. Which - if you’ve seen the new Star Wars “Acolyte” commercial or watched any children’s movies in the last five years, that’s basically the message - kids are smarter than adults and are our bosses. Their life plan is perfect, and always revolves around the ultimate good which is pinpointing their micro-identities. And they’re always nailing it, because what kids have is this craaaaazy sort of wisdom unobscured by the clouding of growing older and…accumulating…wisdom? Anyway, fuck you if you don’t remember that being the case at all when you were a dumbass kid, because the kids now are like upgraded and shit.

Quick - what is an institution you believe in? Do you really think hospitals are special places anymore? Do you really think that there is something magical going on in congress? I would say the last stronghold is the courtroom, and that is slipping as well. It still has some teeth for now, but that might be gone in a generation. We had so many centuries where our knobby knees trembled under the yolk of order and rigor and expectation, that we replaced that now with a complete “free period” on all life activities, which is fine as long as their are suckers who are willing to do the last few shit jobs and not enjoy any of the fruits of their labor. Now where can we find some folks who will quietly work hard and keep their head down and - on top of all of it - continue to be blamed for all the bad stuff happening to the people they are doing work for?

I suppose AI will do that, but straight white people will suffice in the meantime. Unless they have long covid or something. Because that’s a real disability, just like having both your legs shot off or being born without eyes.

IX. Just you wait til they get to the real world - then they’ll understand. They’ll. understand that the moving autobiographical picture book train of identity enthusiasm they call life is going to keep on rocking and rolling forever. And who will stop these bite-sized tyrants? Will you stand up to a 20 year old? A 20 year old college educated bitch is probably the most terrifying person on earth right now. Though I’m not sure how bad things are in Cote d’Ivoir at the moment.

X. We must pursue a politics of refusal, no matter the cost. Let them play their stupid games and then win their stupid prizes. Do you really have any fear that they would actually be able to run this place? C’mon. They’re fucked.