When you are over fifty you begin speculating about what life could have been when you were young. When you are young you speculate about what life will be like when you turn 35 and become old. Neither are spared their delusions as they journey onward. This is the second part of “Our Transition Recession.”
We begin with a comment on an interesting article by Reihan Salam (Time Magazine, March 22, 2010, pg.46, 47). Its title foretells the life stories for many in future generations: “The Dropout Economy, The future of work looks a lot like unemployment.” Whether or not present spectators of our times believe we are witnessing a tectonic shift in how the economic, social and political landscape is being reconfigured, we are definitely feeling the ground move beneath our feet. Incidentally, that big wall of water is not a mirage, it is a tsunami racing towards us to wash-away the doubters about change. Salam’s view of the future is not grim, nor sci-fi in its conclusions. He simply writes a picture board of images depicting what many of America’s tomorrow’s will look like. If those tomorrow’s are for the better or for the worse, they will depend upon how we prepare ourselves for unknowns, countless challenges and in how we energize ourselves to live–with reduced governmental and institutional support.
Unlike the Boomers, who represent the last economic vestiges of World War II, Salam’s America post 2020 or so, will move quickly, where the slow to change will feel left behind in a digital dust storm. If and when the dust settles, the digital refugees will live like orphans in a place where there are no parents to care for them. In fact, no one will care about them! If you have grown up sheltered from life and unwilling to engage it, you are screwed! We are not talking about Darwinism at play with lives, but about something more powerful, exacting and unforgiving.
From my observations Americans want to both regress and progress at the same time. We want to go fast and yet not move from one spot, right now. You can hear sounds of our capacities being shredded, torn skill by skill, brain cell by brain cell until the very qualities of life, as we prefer, are threatened for those who cannot move–mentally–into another place. It is an understandable consequence to find that their heads and hands have shrunken ten sizes too small to meet the challenges beyond today. As Salam projects, there are 20 somethings who are expanding their minds and hands to create tomorrow for their generations and not for those of the past. That conclusion is as it should be.
Although his story does represent a somewhat extreme view of our world, it is more than plausible. And, it is the plausible, san wishful thinking and cosmic dreams, which will embed a different America, unlike any other, deep in to this century.
In reading his short article I am reminded of a book published in 1981, titled, The Nine Nations of North America, by Joel Garreau. Garreau, who is also the author of Edge City, a must read and older volume on what we are living today in urban and suburban environs; describes what is another plausible view of America’s places and spaces. Obviously, when we think of nations we think of lands inhabited by a diversity of people. Perhaps that is the case of America, but our evolving Internet is leading us away from far flung diversity. Instead, we are cascading towards a long beach front, which is falling away at our feet. We are, America in 2010, the tsunami.
In Transition Two I am asking one simple question: Do we have the capacities to live in a vastly different world from what the Boomers adopted post World War Two? Of course, capacities is the term we must focus upon to further explore our world’s beyond today. Capacities include: skills, knowledge, ambitions, attitudes, capabilities (emotional, physical, thoughtfulness, spirituality, etc.) Understandably, they do not support unlimited status quo. They ultimately recycle ideas and weave new materials of possibilities into plausibilities, and thus into realities. The secret of our Transition Recession is that it will not end for several generations to come. We are experiencing our Great Depression, World War II and post war years all at one time. When we try to step back to see what is happening we are already within the mix of the Transition. It will not let us retire like the Boomers. Retirement, as a capacity, will be interspersed throughout the lives of future generations. Work will not be work, but will resemble more of what we call lifestyles today. Learning will be constant and continuous throughout life and not based on class seat time, nor on diplomas and degrees. Learning will be about what you are able to do in life, what you contribute to an array of communities, and in what positive aspects of living you teach others. Your status, for what is left of the concept, will be determined by who needs you as a human being and not just for your skills and knowledge.
At the end of the Transition Recession will come another Transition. In the end, there is always another transition for future generations to ponder. At that point they will have the responsibility to bury ours, along with all before in a tomb labelled history.
One last caveat to the Transition: The Great Disaster
The hurricane called Katrina was predictable and long awaited by residents along the Louisiana coastline. Radar reported its coming, but only the thoughtful where those who did not like to stare folly face-to-face, and where able to move, chose to remove themselves beyond harms way. Katrina was a whispering wind compared to the The Master Earthquake, which hit simultaneously in several locations around the world. Collectively, all had epicenters close to the surface and all exceeded 9.8 on the Richter Scale–all were connected by time. Cities were not destroyed, as they and their inhabitants simply vanished from the face of the earth. Imagine, plates of mass were reconfigured creating new structures of the earth’s surface. This will always be known as the transition of transitions. We must also remember that earthquakes do not respect borders assigned on maps, as earthquakes have the power to draw new maps at will.
Yes, this is a prediction and I am not an alarmist. It is just we have recently witnessed several large earthquakes around the world, many but not all in the Pacific Rim. I just feel that the earth is moving from within and no movie can change this scenario for the better. It is true, earth and time hold all the cards. And the cards for America include: New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, L.A. and The Valley, all of the rest of the California coast and inland, Portland, OR, Seattle and western Washington, to name just a few hot spots.