Gen X - Becoming an Oldster

Raise your hand if you’re starting to feel your age. If you can lift you arm.

Time’s really marching on. We Buddhists are aware of this on a “we hear, contemplate and study this kind of thing all the time” but when it really hits you - ooof.

There’s a guy that goes to many of the heavier music shows and this guy is righteous. He has a long ZZ Top-esque beard that is as white as snow  and he wears obscure band t-shirts on his skinny rocker frame. He’s into it all. He’s not going through the neuroses that I’ve seen people go through when they hit their mid-life crisis and worry about what people think of them. Whether they’re too old for Manic Panic tinged hair. For skirts that are above the knee. Any of the rules that generations hear and then berate themselves over.

Dude just rocks out and doesn’t give a flip.

I read this Salon article recently and maybe it’s the wannabe sociologist in me but I get fascinated by how others are viewing this life transition. Are we aging in the same way as our parents? Are our values and priorities the same? Easier? Harder? Just different?

I buy up a lot of books and read a lot of studies on my generation because it’s a weird generation. Maybe it’s just me that has that feeling of it being weird or maybe it’s a generational thing that we’re all feeling because we’re Gen X-ers and well *shrugs shoulders.*

From the Salon article I mentioned above, “If you think this is typical Gen X whining, you are probably a boomer.”

Speaking of my generation…. I watched this lovely short film on Dharma Punx NYC’s Josh Korda and think you should check it out.

What do you think of being a Gen X-er? A Gen- X Buddhist? How are you navigating your new old agedness? Does it make you want to start a band? Pick up your skateboard again?