Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer
Nowadays, kids cannot be bothered with their parents for anything; they are too busy in transnational digital communications with people who are most likely more capable to giving them advice they will savor and take than those who gave birth to them. Familiarity breeds contempt they say, and these kids do have contempt for hypocrisy and duplicity, not that they don’t believe in white lies, all out omission, and never ratting out a friend, even though they would turn their parents in to the IT NAZIS in a heartbeat.
Most interesting is the hooking up phase of relationships for the IT crowd. They will be in physical proximity for hours and never say a word to those in the room all the while blazing away in a flurry of texting with people they have never and may never ever shake hands with. Neither of them have anything to lose, and so the heightened sense of only having just this, an emotional link that is not unlike a black hole’s event horizon, is all they have! Their parents will seemingly never just drop dead so they will stop trying to stifle their creativity and freedom of speech!
Yes, if their parents did drop dead it would be a pivotal moment and all of the universe would crumble and they would probably go into foster care and the world would cease to exist; that’s the point, these folks just don’t have it in them to keel over!
Now, let’s move on to phase two: Once these two have discovered they have almost nothing in common except brand names and rebellion against the man and like the same social media and music, they are set on a path to intergalactic star-crossing. Romeo and Juliet have nothing on them. Their parents both act like these kids have abandoned their families just because they sleep until noon and talk all night, giggling into the dark. And they must meet.
They begin by having video chats and then streaming themselves as if they had been beamed up on Star Trek, making more allusions to pop culture than anyone who knows them can keep up with, the digital version of baby talk mashing with pig Latin. Then there are lightning storms and outages, power failures and contract renewals for telecommunications. The parents may try pulling the plug or signing off, or ending the contract, but with every kid having a Dick Tracy two-way wrist radio, this is a futile attempt at lacking towards misery.
And, when you’re in love, what are obstacles anyways? Behind sneaking out and then stealing the credit cards and then buying a ticket and jetting off to parts unknown only to be discovered by GPS and live data that your child has taken it upon him or herself to travel to the furthest reaches to prove what you said is as true as can be, only you meant way later after college and being on the job for two years, that when you fall in love, you make crazy decisions.
“Oh, your mother and I fell and love and got married a month later.” Remember all of those stories? Or maybe they were told at family reunions. Oh, this crazy family! And now we have birthed children who have international mobility and transnational communications at their fingertips and then given them access to the world data banks through the Internet where buying and going and moving and falling in love are all only 7 billion souls away.
Phase III: And we want them to do it on our time schedule and with people who look and think just like us. Naïve, really. And so they meet, and being together is all there is, except now their personal habits drive each other crazier, and they can’t believe that they would ever believe what they think they believe, that’s so stupid. And being together has made the thought of being with anyone so painful that they never want to relate again. And they go back home to their e. e. cummings, “I told you so’s.”
Okay, that’s extreme, and it’s pushing it, slightly. And who is it that is living this American tragedy? Grandparents and parents, and siblings, and children, and wives and husbands, and daughters, and those who are football widows, and all the other avenues of having lost someone to the powers that be as they move away emotionally and starve out a relationship.
My cat has taken to meowing until I open the door to the attic, where he hangs out all day long. In the morning he wakes me to feed him and if it is not put just right in his bowl, he throws a fit and snarls at me until I fix it.
I wonder what’s on TV.
runningturtle87
