unique generation

I was born in a time unlike any other in history.
You might ask yourself, "What was so special about the fall of 1983?"

This was a time when Reaganomics was just getting started, Michael Jackson was becoming a solo pop star, and the internet was  still something that "the government had created" in comic books.  The times have changed, as happens often.  Yet, not since perhaps WWI when soldiers saw planes in combat has a generation seen such a dramatic change that would alter the future so drastically.

Before you write me off as the typical "back in my day" sorta thing, let me explain more in-depth.

Before those born circa '83 people grew up on typewriters and were introduced to the computer keyboard in adulthood for example.  Same goes for many things that are commonplace now for children to grow up on such major advances while their parents were introduced to them in adulthood: the internet, cellphones, CD's, mp3's, and the list goes on.

I remember very distinctly being labeled as "guinea pigs" by a teacher for a brand new idea being implemented into the junior high curriculum; "computer class".  It was a class made up of a room full of computers (each monitor taking up the area of a desk) with black screens where we'd type simple functions in yellowish type.  Two years later I was a part of the last class to take keyboarding class on these computers.  The following year, we had screens with color and (limited) access to the world wide web.  Growing up we could buy records on vinyl (not because it was cool or ironic, but because it was the only way to buy an album) until cassettes came out and then replaced by CD's ultimately.  The security device back then was putting tapes in a plastic holster at least 6 times the size of the cassette.

It is not the amount of things that changed or what they were (as long as there are vintage collectors, there will be vinyl and CD's around in someone's collection of antiques), instead it is the manner in which things changed and never looked back.  If you look back upon other times when things happened, they tend to be more slowly progressed and don't alter the future in such a dynamic way.
The rate at which online life (relationships, commerce, and news) is growing and will continue to grow, you can't help but see the dramatic and world-altertering change that I've been able to see in my short lifetime already.

It will be fun to blabber on, when I'm old, about how "back in my day" we didn't have this or that.  When a gallon of gas was under a dollar, when you went to the store to buy everything, when people knew what a floppy disk was, and when the internet was new.
It's very fun to be in the segment of the population stuck between Generation X, with their angst and over-reaction to their parents' causes and Generation Y, with their vast knowledge of technology and spoiled childhoods in which discipline was absent.
Is it frustrating being such a unique population? At time, yes.  Sometimes I feel that I don't relate to the true Gen Xer's because I'm too young, but definitely don't relate to the Gen Yer's because they like terrible music and don't appreciate a time when MTV played music.  But, what a unique opportunity to be on the cusp of the front end of monumental times that have been, and will be, like no other.


-peace