GenJones

For YEARS I've been saying, "I'm not a Boomer." only to be told (usually smuggly) "Yes you are." And then I'd have to agree that technically I was born in what HAD been defined as the Baby Boom Generation.

It seems, now that we have president who is also "not a Boomer", that my plea not to be lumped in with Boomers and my opinion that in many ways I have more in commmon with GenXers finally has company.

There was a recent article in USToday (which I don't usually read, except when out of town on business trips because the hotel literally puts it on my doorstep) by Jonathan Pontell who indicates that I am Generation Jones. Who knew our Generation has its own website? This website claims, with much supporting data, that we aren't Boomers and we know we aren't GenXers

Pontell's USAToday article says that for GenJones "idealism trumps ideology" and "pragmatism is the guiding light". Wow. I would not said it that way but, once said, describing myself as a Pratical Idealist, is dead on. I am idealist. Painfully so. There is right, there is wrong, there is the way it is and the way it should be. But I am also a pragmatist. If I am going to argue my idealist point, I am going to do it with supporting data and a willingness to say that this is how *I* interpret the data. I am so GenJones.


Jonathan Pontell says:
"While the Boomers were out changing the world, Jonesers were still in elementary school — wide-eyed, not tie-dyed. That intense love-peace-change-the-world zeitgeist stirred our impressionable hearts. We yearned to express our own voice. By the time we came of age and could take the stage, though, a decade of convulsions had left the nation fatigued. During the game we'd been forced to watch from the sidelines, and passage into college and careers came only after the final gun had long since sounded."
and
"Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often-unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren't engaged in that era's ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while Boomers argued about Vietnam. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-Boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide."
and
"We can lead."

I'd say rather, now that we have kicked the last Boomer President out of the White House, we ARE leading.

As Pontell says: "Obama has The Jones. It permeates his biography and his philosophy. It's a crucial piece of his identity. His message and approach reverberate with GenJones themes."

But Obama didn't get there on his own, it was a large contingent of "practical idealists" who are also optimists, who helped put him there. Finally, GenJones has someone who really speaks their language.

In Stregheria, Aradia is an avatar an embodiment (as of a concept or philosophy) often in a person. Aradia, could be thought of as a flower child, protester, who belived in free love, kind of like a Boomer.

But Aradia's Words Concerning Life say: "We live upon the Earth because we are not prepared to live in the ways of spirit. We are not physical beings and this is why physical life is often difficult. It is not our way to disregard the physical, for we dwell within it. So it is best to live in harmony with the world. But for us to become involved in the physical as to disregard the spirit is likewise harmful. This binds us to rebirth and unhappiness."

Sounds like a practical idealist approach to me. Maybe Stregheria could have an appeal with other GenJones out there and a few practical idealistic Boomers & GenXers too.