A stereotyped, highly opinionated and true view of my own generation.

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I was born into the early 1980s when music pretty much sucked. It was hurt by electronic synthesizers and pre-programmed drumbeats that destroyed the underlying musicality. New sounds were possible, but the possibilities were misused.

It was the dawn of MTV, but they hadn’t yet worked out how to make great music videos and I didn’t even have access to the channel. Margaret Thatcher was in charge; telling us how to be greedy, but not what to do with the money. The Soviet Union was about to collapse and the computer was slowly creeping its way into our homes.

My generation grew up with a whole load of crap. New ideas, new ways of parenting, new technology, new sounds and, worst of all, new haircuts. Almost everything in the 80s was in bad taste, but it was experimental. We were the receivers of an unrefined new world. I don’t think anybody really knew what to do with it all. Everyone was inexperienced because everything was new.

As young children, I believe we knew it was rubbish. We knew we were surrounded by an empty and crude new plastic-playground, but we didn’t yet understand how much better it could be. We are the channel-flipper generation not because we have a low attention span, but because we have a low tolerance for the rubbish we have been fed. Our boredom threshold is low, but give us something engaging and we will surprise you with our ability to concentrate.

As hollow as the 80s felt, we were witnessing a gradual refinement and understanding of how to use this emerging technology with skill and taste. We have constantly been looking for improvements. Always questioning anything that is old and trying to make it better. We reject the traditions that have no purpose. Nothing is sacred. We will reinvent our language if a good word doesn’t already exist. We will invent a new word just because we like to create. But we don’t mince words. We don’t use the ‘f word’, nor the ‘f**k’ word. We use the actual ‘fuck’ word and won’t warn you in advance.

As we came of age and started to produce music of our own, the marketers stole a piece of us and baked us into the world of fake reality TV and the manufactured band. But this is just how the generation above have tried to mould us. We are susceptible to marketing but we are not the ones who created this empty culture. We reject it when we create. Our music isn’t pop. It is rock, indie, metal, post-grunge, hip hop, R&B, but most of all we create music that can’t be easily categorised; we are the refined experimenters. We all have different tastes. We are influenced by the 60s and 70s and reactive of the 80s. Our music is trailblazing, skilful, playful, and experimental. It is very important to some of us, but not to all. We mix it all up and we sell out and don’t have a problem with that, because we believe art cannot be destroyed by money.

When we started asking questions, our parents listened but didn’t have good answers. As we enter the workforce we have begun to question the bosses, our colleagues, the politicians, each other and even the customers. We want to rise in our careers, earn more than average, but we won’t do it by becoming ‘yes men’; not in small part because half of the career blazers are women. We are loyal but not to the companies we work for; mostly we are loyal to ourselves. We are casual at work and call everybody by their first name. We don’t want to wear suits. We think ‘Dress-down Friday’ is dumb; everyday should be smart/casual. We believe in looking good and acting professional, but that doesn’t mean we will tie ourselves up for the Man.

We have all tried the softer illegal drugs (except for me apparently) and many were encouraged to do so by our parents. Most have smoked but many have given it up. Many go to the gym, but we could eat better. Few have given up drinking and we are often rude and obnoxious when drunk. But we are more likely to try to come onto you than try to fight you. Though this is certainly not true of all of us. Some of us are jerks (and we have female jerks too). The rest of us don’t understand why our elders still let them get away with it.

We grew up as computers grew up. We remember when they didn’t do anything and were out-of-date hours after our parents bought them. We remember how much of a pain it was to load software from a cassette, or to find the right driver for a printer that was spewing random characters. We engaged as computers developed hard-drives, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, monitors with more than 16 colours and then we saw it all become obsolete; replaced by something just a little bit better. We always hated beige boxes, and didn’t understand why someone didn’t design a beautiful machine. We are extremely tech-savvy. We are the first generation that grew up with perpetual change. We are the protean generation. Some of us freak out for new gadgetry, but many more find it about as exciting as the invention of a new sandwich filling. We consume, understand its importance, learn to use it, but treat technology as the tool it is.

We watched the internet arrive. Slowly at first (28.8 kbit/s). We entered chat rooms on AOL, set up home pages in the Geocites. We were the generation that stole music using Napster and called it ’sharing’. When broadband finally arrived, the net became more central to our lives. We now consume video, socialise and find more music… which we have started to pay for… but only if it is worthy of our payment.

We hit puberty just a little too early for the pornographic internet to be ready. But by our mid-teens it did arrive and we were still interested. So we are open about it with each other. We have seen just about every fetish you can think of and many more you couldn’t. Recently some of us even started producing, starring in and sharing it… not for money but because we like to create. If we seem more immoral than previously generations, it’s because we don’t repress and hide it. We believe that makes us more moral. We are honest and transparent about our less than perfect selves. We have been entertained by extreme violence, in film and more actively in video games, but almost all of us despise it in reality. We are friendly and caring although first impressions sometimes contradict this.

We produce as much as we consume. We are about as far from passive as is possible. We don’t watch; we play. We write blogs (some of us) and tell everyone what we think (most of us), we create videos and art, and now we are beginning to start new businesses. We are opinionated and will make sure we are listened to. We don’t think you are good enough. We don’t think we are good enough. We will embarrass ourselves and publish it online. We don’t heed warnings that future employers will google us. Let them find us. There is far more good for them to discover than bad.

We are the global generation. Many of us have travelled the world. Many nationalities have mixed with us at university and more so on the web. We have found they are, in all important ways, just like us. We understand the global world through the friends we make.

We don’t view enemies in black and white. We dislike the actions of our own politicians almost as much as those who attack us. We don’t believe in war, we will fight poverty, we hate racism, sexism and homophobia. We look out for ourselves but we are not selfish.

The Cold War ended before we could understand it. War has been far away from us and we have never had to fear conscription. We are not naive. We realise we are lucky and are thankful for it. When we hear that others do not have what we have, we have a great desire to change this inequality. We have the ideas and the experience of the previous generation to help us.

We don’t do what we are told; we do what we are inspired to do. But we will be lead, if we could ever find a worthy leader. In its absence we are happy to lead ourselves. Nobody gets our respect because of their job, title, age, gender or background. You have to earn it and if you are being stupid we will tell you that you’re an idiot.

We are highly educated, but perhaps in pointless things. We have been students for so long, that we can’t be changed into normal workers now. But we understand we are needed. The world is changing fast, and we are the generation that is accustomed to moving fast with it.

And as much as we move with a fast changing world, we ourselves, grew up slowly. We are the spoilt generation that has been reluctant to leave our nests. So we’ve taken a little longer to arrive than you’d expect. But we are here now.

We are going to be difficult to deal with I’m afraid. But we are confident that you will love us as we start to rock the world.

We love you too.

Back in the spring I signed up for an account at Audible. I took some convincing to join, because prior to then I’d listened to maybe three or four audio books in my life; and I never felt any desire to listen to any more. After a year’s worth of advertising, the marketing department of Audible finally got the better of me. I’ve been hooked ever since.

Pre-audio, my book habits mainly consisted of fiction, biographies, business and design. As soon as I started listening to audio, my intake of most of those genres increased; and history got added to that list. I did not read less, I just had time to consume more.

I have time for audio books because I never just sit down and listen to them; I’m always doing something else at the same time. Such as drawing. Drawing and audio books go very well together because they don’t distract from each other. In fact, I find drawing helps me to focus on the book more.

Paper books on the other hand, take all my attention. Even if I put music on in the background, I soon zone it out. That means I have much less time for it. It’s great for train journeys and to wind down just before bed, but other than that I have to find the time for it. I do find that time, but it doesn’t come easily.

However, as far as I can tell, time is the only reason I’ve become hooked on audio books. In every other respect, reading is favourable.

But not by much. Being able to control the reading pace wins kudos for paper books. I also find it a bit annoying when I want to research something I’ve heard about in a book, but don’t know how to spell what I’m researching because I’ve only heard the word. Yet, knowing the pronunciation almost counteracts that negative.

Reading is not favourable by much, except that is, for fiction.

I’m currently listening to my first audio fiction book. It’s Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. Prior to this, I had read 19 other books from the same Discworld series so I know what to expect; and in the audio version I’m not quite getting it.

As great as Nigel Planer’s narration is, there is something very definite that is lost with the book read aloud. The atmosphere, mood and even visual quality of the book diminishes. In most cases, I would struggle to understand exactly where these things qualities dwindle, but one obvious example is the rendition of the character Death.

Readers of Discworld will know that Death speaks in capital letters (or small-caps). For those who don’t, here is a quotation near the beginning of Mort:

   The air took on a thick, greasy feel, and the deep shadows around Mort became edged with blue and purple rainbows. The rider strode towards him, black cloak billowing and feet making little clicking sounds on the cobbles. They were the only noises – silence clamped down on the square like great drifts of cotton wool.
    The impressive effect was rather spoilt by a patch of ice.
    OH, BUGGER.
    It wasn’t exactly a voice. The words were there all right, but they arrived in Mort’s head without bothering to pass through his ears.

How, other than in writing, can you express that kind of voice?

I had never been to a strip club before. I almost hope I will never go to one again.

It took me a while to figure out why. I would by lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the evening. I did not find the club seedy or disrespectful to women – from what I saw, it wasn’t. The twenty pound notes I found in the nooks of my bank account were delighted to find a new home in the purses of young enterprising ladies. I was not put off by feelings of discomfort because those feelings disappeared within minutes. Neither did it make me feel deviant – and if it had I would have considered it a good thing.

The reason, I think, is that my memory of the evening at the strip club is one of weirdness. I like that memory. And I don’t want to dilute it.

I – and the rest of the stag herd – went to a classy, upmarket club. The same women in a different building, with different furnishings and lighting, would not have made for the same experience. The mood felt right. The price even made the club seem more respectable.

At the entrance we were greeted by two bouncers. They made us feel welcome and they made the club feel professional. After a quick introduction we were lead down a set of stairs into a small foyer. Our guide stopped there, turned to us and enlightened us of the rules, the prices, the location of the restroom and of the cash machines. Then he turned again and lead us through the entrance of the lair, past the bar, past the pole, past private entranceways until we came to our table. Our waitress arrived as we did and asked for our drinks order. Three buckets of beer in ice was a relatively cheap option for the group.

We were given a few moments to settle. A dancer was already on stage, bending into her feline sway. My friend soon remarked that he had sat in the wrong place, before noticing that the seats had wheels. He span to face the stage.

I glanced to my left and saw a horde of semi-naked women, kettling like vultures waiting to scavenge on our money. The beer arrived; I picked up a bottle and took a sip. And then the women descended.

One girl sat next to me and asked me my name. I knew she only wanted my money but I was polite. I told her mine and she told me hers. Then she asked for a sip from my bottle and opened her mouth ready for me to pour. As I did so a little dripped down between her breasts. She asked me to dry it for her. “Am I allowed to do that?” Apparently I was.

Then she asked if I wanted a dance. I had intended to resist their charms, but I said yes almost instantly.

She held my hand and guided me through the club towards a semi-private room.

“Have you been here before?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“I’m going to show you the time of your life”, she said. She didn’t, but she made a good attempt.

One song is what you got. Sooner than I wanted she was getting half dressed again; pausing to place another twenty in her purse. I enjoyed the getting-dressed part; it was so unrehearsed and casual compared to the dance. This girl, however, should probably have rehearsed more, because she forgot to put her underwear back on.

After her second attempt at dressing, she guided me back to my table, gave me a little kiss on the cheek and sent me on my way. A brief affair. Completely unsatisfying. But already addictive.

When I returned to our table I could not find the beer I had abandoned, so I picked up a fresh bottle and settled back into my chair. That chair, built for one occupant, soon found room for a policewoman. I examined her uniform and noted that it was not the standard issue.

She made her advances. I was resistant and informed her that I wanted to finish my drink. But she told me she had been warming up. And I enquired how. She said she had been doing stretches. I asked how flexible she was. She put her legs behind her head. I put my beer down.

The policewoman was a grinder and she barely left my lap. Later that night a friend told of how he had paid for a second performance and said that it had been exactly the same dance both times. I became certain this dance was unique when I found her splayed naked across my lap, struggling to free her hair from my shirt button. “This is not part of the performance” she said.

That was my favourite moment of the evening. It brought home just how weird the situation was. A splash of reality in an otherwise dreamlike world.

The third woman spent more time talking to me and I finally got to finish almost a whole drink. She was from Poland. Studying fashion design (unless that was the next girl; I admit I began to mix them up). We talked for at least ten minutes and so when she asked about a dance, accepting felt like the only decent thing to do.

I was more relaxed for this dance, and enjoyed it more. When she finished she asked if I wanted her to continue for another song and I failed to say no. I took in her soapy smell, responded more as she closed herself around me, enjoyed looking into her eyes but did not forget I was paying to admire her body.

At the end of the second dance she said she felt amazing as I watched her. That I’d done something she couldn’t understand. I told her I thought she said that to everyone. She said she didn’t expect me to believe her, but tried to explain that there was something about the way I looked at her that made her feel good. She sounded genuine. I told her I had no idea if she was playing with me or not, but that she was making me feel good about myself. I remain confused.

This was my third dance (and forth). I heard later from one of our party that at this time he was talking to one of the other girls about me: “I was told he was gay, but I’ve hardly seen him since we arrived”. They speculated that maybe ‘gay’ in my case just meant that I was very happy. When I returned he asked me and I explained that I found each sex fairer. The girl he was with then appeared at my side.

The rest of the time at the club is a hazy memory. I know there were at least three more dances, but I do not remember them like the first three. Maybe they were too perfect and so there was little to remember; or perhaps I had just become girl drunk. I wondered afterwards whether I should feel bad about this memory loss, but then figured none of the girls would remember me either.

I do remember managing to stay at our table long enough to experience one pole dancer performing on stage. My back was to her when I noticed everyone looking behind my shoulder. I turned and saw the most incredible acrobatic display. Held upside down by her legs, she slid slowly down, effortlessly disobeying gravity, turning and wrapping herself around the pole before touching down on the stage in a split. It was less erotic and more impressive to the point of impossible.

At the end of the night there was a great feeling of emptiness; and not just in my wallet. The bathroom attendant had told me not to fall in love. I never have yet, so I didn’t believe that was going to be a problem, but it sure was difficult to shake them out of my head (even the hazy memories bring flashbacks).

There is a knowledge when you walk into the club that it isn’t the girls who are being exploited, it is us customers. Strippers may be real women, but I have no idea how much reality they shared that evening. We customers swap money here for doses of perplexity.

Money alters the experience of these women, creating something incomplete and surreal. A conversation you can believe is so much more fulfilling than the naked flesh of a hot stranger. But I have to recommend these nubile dancers as a very rare treat.

I used to be a pessimist, and found that didn’t work out so well. Over time I became an optimist, and found that didn’t work out so well either. Eventually I learnt to be proactive.

Optimism is far superior to pessimism. You look for the best, you find it and that makes you happy. But, I found it also made me slightly delusional. At some point reality came knocking and I realised that thinking positive thoughts only brought peace and happiness to me and to those I now smiled, rather than frowned, at.

Other people, on the other hand, were still bullied, fell ill, got injured, got killed, still suffered financial hardship, took addictive substances, still had their woes.

So the next stage was to be proactive. I used my re-awakened pessimism to find the problems. Looked for the good, the opportunities and the solutions with the optimism. Then got to work.

When I first made the distinction between dreaming and doing, it felt like an insight that would dramatically change my life in an instant. But the trouble with self-improvement is it’s never as easy as the books tell you. Yes, I thought to myself, I shall be proactive… but my first attempt involved pacing my house merely thinking about being proactive while the washing-up remained un-washed-up.

Over time, I did start being proactive on things that really mattered. Lots of things. A new thing every day. I wanted to solve all the problems in the world, and ended up solving nothing.

I learnt that I had to focus and the focus was to start with something selfish. I was reaching my middle-twenties and I had not yet established a career for myself. A career had to be the first stage, and I’d been neglecting it. I had fallen in love with the open-source software movement. I saw what good it could do to provide useful software to everyone for no cost and with the freedom to use it how they needed. More specifically, I found Drupal and examples of it being used by charities to help them organise, raise money and communicate. I loved how I could work on building a tool for commercial or even fun reasons, and then see the tool used for great things I could not foresee. I had found my career.

When that clicked I really did become proactive. I had found what I wanted to do and so stopped getting distracted. Over the past year I have spent my time learning to code, learning to design, and learning all the other ins and outs of being a web development professional.

I’ve learnt a lot in that year and a half. Not in small part because I didn’t stop for things like evenings or weekends. I got hooked on a dream – had a solid reason for following it – and managed to block everything else out.

My view of the world over that time has gradually matured. I keep on finding new bits of the puzzle and figuring out how they fit into the big picture. That’s exciting. Sooner or later I realised that I could make my own pieces and change the picture slightly. That is even more exciting.

It is addictive.

Right now I am learning how to make my first piece. It’s difficult and hard work but I am determined to figure it out.

But here is the problem: I hunger for my picture of the world, and the disparity between that and reality annoys me. There is a sense of having my optimistic delusional-self back, but somehow being aware of it. There is an arrogance in there, which wraps itself around an inferiority complex. And probably worst of all, although I love my family and my friends and would go to huge lengths to help them, I also resent them interrupting me or otherwise distracting me from seeking the world I would like to create. I want to help on my own terms. Somehow I’ve found a way to mix selfishness and selflessness together.

It’s not like this is a new personality for me. I’ve not really changed just because I now have a solid goal. It’s just that there now seems to be a reason for being the way I am. Not a cause, but a reason.

Unfortunately, I’m not really happy with who I am. I don’t have the fun that I could fill my time with. I don’t live stress free like I could. I’m not always there for my friends like I probably should be.

And yet, for the first time in my life, I am not willing to change.

Today we received a leaflet through the door, advertising a new citizen-news website; an alternate news source to the main stream media.

They claim that the main stream media has agendas which do not fall into the category of ’spread the truth’. I don’t need much convincing to believe that this is true. It must be so frustrating for a journalist working in these times; having to put up with such restrictive tight deadlines and editors choosing Britney type stories (does that really sell papers?). Stand up and go independent I say. Please!

Until that happens I look for hope wherever I can, so when I saw the leaflet I thought I’d check it out.

I was rather surprised to find that a site which wanted to be an alternative to the main-stream would just be a blog full of links to main-stream articles. No original content; not even a commentary. How does that make sense? Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what you would expect them to be doing?

My non-surprise was to find another conspiracy site based on wild speculation and a side of mass paranoia.

Then I realised how stupid I was being. This isn’t a conspiracy site at all! They are simply pointing out examples of where main-stream-media have written particularly bad articles. It took this post to finally make me come to my senses. I must say they are doing a great job; that’s one of the worst pieces of main-stream journalism I have ever seen.

Anyway, I’ll keep dreaming that one day someone will do some real investigative journalism.

Being one of the ten people who have yet to buy an iPod, the iTunes store has always been next to useless for me. My only choices to get new MP3s that I can play on my portable player has either been to steal it or to head back into the 1990s and purchase a compact disc.

Several months ago Amazon gave me hope when they began offering DRM free music from their store; but they failed to offer it to non-American residents. Have none of these companies heard of the new global world?

But Aha! Today I discovered Tesco Digital. A place to buy legal – free from DRM – downloadable music in the UK.

Bravo Tesco!

The selection is rather pathetic at the moment, but it is a start at least. Worth checking out as a first port of call.

[note that the MP3s are DRM free, but the WMAs are not.]

It was deep; intelligent; sensitive; it met my high expectations.

Then – about 20 seconds after the credits rolled – it all hit me and I completely broke down.

I don’t think this one is going to live within its running time.

What’s this? A blog post?

Yes. Yes, it is.

That’s the thing I like about my blog. It’s here when I want to write something and when I don’t, I keep it out of sight.

It wasn’t always this way. Not long ago I used to worry about posting on my blog. And I used to worry that I’d gone a week without plucking a guitar string. Or a whole month without putting lead to paper.

Then I thought, screw it.

I’m really only doing these things because I enjoy them. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if learn to play like Clapton, draw like da Vinci, speak German like a German.

Because I’m the kind of person who likes learning new things, and taking on challenges, I don’t really need to pressure myself into trying harder. I’m already trying too hard as it is.

I used to be the kind of guy who would have panic attacks when he visited the library. Too many books. How was I ever going to read them all?

I’m amazed how long it took me to figure out that I didn’t need to.

I’m even more amazed that people are still complaining about this same thing. It’s getting worse they say. Social networks, text messages, blogs, twitter, facebook. How does one keep up? Information overload has becoming a serious problem and it’s only going to get worse.

Or perhaps it’s all in their heads.

I’ve just looked it up. I have 197 subscriptions to various blogs. I probably get about 400 posts to read every day. But I have a secret. There’s this little button in Google Reader called ‘Mark all as read’. And what some people don’t know is you can press that button even if you haven’t actually read all of them! Seriously! I’ve been doing it for months now, and I’m totally getting away with it. Nobody checks.

And here’s the really amusing thing: If you step back from the noise for a while and gain some perspective, you’ll realise that the ones who try so hard to keep up are the ones who keep up, but the ones who don’t try to keep up are the ones everyone else is trying to keep up with.

• He can’t use a camera
• He can’t use any device with a camera built in (so pretty much every mobile phone)
• He can only use the internet in relation to employment (but must get the police constable’s permission first)
• He can’t be in any contact with anyone under the age of 18
• He can’t enter any area predominantly used by children
• He can’t be in any house if there is a child there
• He can’t take any job without asking permission of the police constable
• He can’t hire a car without notifying the police

Why take a mentally disturbed man, cripple him of any possible chance he has to function in a modern society, and then release him back into such a society?

(BBC News article)