Tire Tuesday.
Okay, so there's something that comes up every several years that annoys the living hell
out of me, all right?
And that is these dumbass generation wars where there's an article or somebody on nowadays,
I guess it'd be on social media, on TikTok or whatever, somebody will make a comparison
like Generation X versus Generation Z versus Generation whatever letter or number.
I don't...
Look, okay.
This happens all the time and every generation says the goddamn same thing about the previous
generation or the generation before it, right?
Goes in both directions, all right?
I need everyone to just stop this dumb narrative, all right?
There is no difference.
People are people, okay?
People who are old are old people.
They're going to be old and do old shit, okay?
People who are young are going to be young and think and act like young people, all right?
Okay?
There's no huge generational gap that explains why an entire swath of humanity is the way
that they are, okay?
I mean, there might be some small differences, but there's nothing major, all right?
It's always the same shit.
It's always like, oh, back in my days, music was much better because we talked about things
with substance.
Or it'd be like, oh, you old fogies don't really get it, right?
Our situation is different than your time because of inflation and yada yada, it costs
the living so high, yada yada.
Okay.
Every generation has said the exact same thing in both directions, okay?
I need both sides to stop this shit right now.
It's stupid.
It's annoying as hell, mainly because none of it is true and it just stirs up all this
tension between generations that should just, that don't really exist, okay?
I have a theory as to what's actually going on.
I do, all right?
It has nothing to do with being of a particular generation.
It doesn't have to do with anything about a particular period in history where people
had access to such and such information or such and such technology.
And so they're different now fundamentally than previous generations.
Okay.
I don't think it has anything to do with that.
Okay.
I have a theory.
I don't know how correct this theory is, okay?
I am not a researcher.
I do not, I'm not an expert in this area.
If somebody is, then please go ahead and do the research for me and then tell me if I'm
wrong.
I'll do it if you could give me good evidence as to why this whole theory is just garbage.
Okay.
But here's my theory.
Here's my theory.
Okay.
People are people and every person that's ever born ever has to go through the process
of maturation from birth as an infant to a toddler to a little kid to a teenager to an
adult and then even as an adult when you're 20s and you're 30s and you're 40s, the circumstances
in the world might change, but people are still people.
What that means is that whatever generational difference you're experiencing or feel like
there is, it's most likely that the content is different, but the actual stuff that's
going on, right?
The deeper stuff that's actually happening with humanity is just exactly the same.
It's just young people experiencing young people's shit and older generations experiencing
older generations.
Let me give you an example of this.
Okay.
All right.
So there's been evidence that clearly when you're in your adolescent years, you're a
much bigger risk taker.
Okay.
You're a much bigger risk taker.
Okay.
That just has to do with part of the growing into your body aspect.
Right.
You need to develop a prefrontal cortex and so on.
Okay.
So when young people do young people's shit, it's going to look stupid to people who already
have a fully developed prefrontal cortex because they're thinking like, oh, in the long term,
that just seems like a really dumb idea.
Right.
What are these young kids thinking?
Right.
They're thinking exactly the way that you thought when you were the same age, when you
were going through the exact same process of going through puberty.
Right.
Going through that maturation process in those adolescent years.
Okay.
Your prefrontal cortex was still developing.
You were much more likely to take risks.
You're making a lot of dumb decisions.
You're no different than the previous generation.
It just looks different.
There's different risks because there's different technology, different stuff available.
Right.
That you could just do dumb shit with.
But it's the same thing.
Okay.
Looks different, but underneath the surface, exactly the same.
Okay.
Here's something else that often happens.
Right.
So as you get older, I think from what I understand, right, your brain doesn't solidify, but your
brain, it becomes harder to learn new things.
Right.
And that's partly because one of the things that happens, right, is when you repeat a
certain pattern of thinking, lighting up the brain in a certain way, right, those synapses,
I think it gets like much more ingrained and it becomes harder to break up some of the
connections in the brain.
So it's harder to think outside the box.
Right.
It's hard to see from a different perspective in the sense of, you know, being able to see
the world from a different paradigm.
Okay.
So one of the more influential works that has impacted my thinking on this to some degree
is Thomas Kuhn's, I think it's called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, where
he talks about scientific revolutions happening in this way.
He's a historian.
Thomas Kuhn is a historian who talks about this.
And he talks about how, you know, essentially, I mean, the gist I got from it is that, you
know, what happens isn't that, you know, the older generations learn from experiments like,
oh yeah, we saw things the wrong way.
So they shift their paradigm and they view the world in a different way.
No.
The other thing is that the older generations and the newer generations have the same data,
but the older generations are kind of stuck in their ways.
And then once they die, the newer generations who prefer a different way of viewing things,
they just end up being the ones to kind of move the, you know, move the field forward.
Right.
So in other words, as you age, you're going to have a harder time kind of thinking in
new creative sorts of ways from different sort of angles, seeing things from different
angles.
You're going to have a lot more preconceived notions because you've had a lifetime of experiences
to inform you in that way.
Right.
It's not a knock on people as they get older.
Okay.
This is just a normal part of aging.
Okay.
Nowadays, they're doing research on hallucinogens.
I'm so excited for it.
Apparently, there's hallucinogens that can help break up some of these connections to
allow you to think a little bit differently than you're used to thinking, viewing the
world differently than you normally do, being open to new ideas.
Okay.
If that comes through, then this changes everything, I think.
It'll change things for, especially for the older population.
Right.
But for younger people, I think there's a little bit more malleability.
Right.
Things are not as set in stone.
Okay.
So when people who are older are thinking a certain way and have a hard time breaking
out of it and the younger generation is like, you're all stuck in your ways.
To some degree, they're correct.
Right.
To some degree, they're correct.
Okay.
But it's not because they're just of a different generation.
Okay.
That's just a normal aging thing.
You know what?
I'm just saying, all right, all you younger people, when you age, you're going to say
the exam fucking same exact fucking same thing to the newer generations when you get older.
Okay.
You're going to say the exact same thing.
I guarantee you because every several years a new article comes out or a new trend happens
where people are doing this comparison stuff and it's stupid.
It's the same shit every single time.
It doesn't actually make any sense at all, especially when everybody always says, every
generation says the exact goddamn same thing.
Okay.
There's no difference.
Okay.
Here's going to be my suggestion.
All right.
So that everybody, so we could create world peace here.
Okay.
This is what we're going to do.
Okay.
Older generations, acknowledge that as you age, it becomes harder to see from a more
novel perspective.
Okay.
It's going to be harder.
I didn't say impossible.
It's going to be harder.
Okay.
So you're going to have to try a little bit harder to understand the newer generations
and the way they do things.
Got it?
Younger generations, accept that you are in the stage that you are.
Okay.
This especially happens during adolescence when you're trying to find your own identity,
find your own way and so on.
Okay.
But you can do all that while still acknowledging that you're still physiologically a goddamn
sociopath.
All right.
Your prefrontal cortex is not developed.
You're going to do some dumb shit.
Okay.
This is part of the growing up process.
You should have a little grace on yourself.
Accept that you're going to make mistakes along the way.
You're going to make bad decisions.
Older generations have some patience with them.
You did the same thing.
Okay.
You're not going to be like anyone else.
The younger generations accept that you are going to be like the older generations when
that time comes.
All right.
So have a little empathy, both directions.
All right.
You all have a little more empathy towards one another.
Okay.
And then have actual conversations and respect the fact that each side brings a different
perspective.
All right.
That should be the end of it, honestly.
Okay.
You could respect previous generations and previous generations, you could respect the
new things that the newer generations are coming up with.
You could critique both sides, but don't critique it from this dumb ass like, Oh, it's generational
differences.
Okay.
Stop that.
That's not what it is.
Okay.
It makes the discussions going both directions much harder to have.
All right.
I will not knock on you.
I will make fun of younger generations.
Don't be, you know, don't get this twisted.
Right.
I will mock older and younger generations and my own generations, but that just has
to do with me enjoying mocking things that are stupid.
Okay.
Let's just call things as they are.
If it's dumb, it's dumb.
If there's a new God damn TikTok trend that looks absolutely stupid.
Okay.
I'm going to take a moment.
I'm not going to, because I'm one of the getting to be one of the older people.
Right.
I'm in my forties.
Oh my goodness.
I feel like I aged a year just saying that out loud.
Okay.
So I will try my best to slow down and consider that maybe there's some things that I don't
understand and take the time to try to understand.
Okay.
But younger generations understand that if I call it stupid, whatever it is that you're
doing or whatever the trend is or whatever is popular.
Okay.
Or if I think, oh, been there, done that.
It's boring.
It's blase.
Whatever.
Okay.
If I say that and I have done it after I have thought and been trying, you know, have tried
to understand this newer generation and the way they do things.
Right.
So, okay, then understand, understand that I'm making an informed critique and instead
of knocking on me for being of a particular generation, maybe try to find out why I think
it's so goddamn stupid, whatever it is you're doing.
Okay.
And guess what?
I will extend the same courtesy to you.
Okay.
So if you are willing to go ahead and have take the time to actually try to understand
that maybe I have some experiences that inform my opinion.
Okay.
And then you come to a conclusion that, yeah, still what you're doing, it's pretty stupid
or it's wrong or X, Y, Z, whatever the critique is.
Okay.
I will listen to you with open ears and I will respond to you not with defensiveness,
but with an acknowledgement that there might be something that I'm not seeing and that
you are privy to that information and I'm going to try to learn from you.
Okay.
Does that seem fair?
I think that goes for people who are older than me too.
Okay.
Same deal.
Okay.
No more of this generational stuff.
Okay.
I never ever want to hear any of this bullshit, my nails are like this and Gen X and Gen Z
are like this.
In fact, I can't even keep track of the different generations and the names that are given.
This is just stupid.
Okay.
If there are differences, like I said, it's minor.
Okay.
So let's stop it.
Let's stop it.
Okay.
Let's just have conversations human to human, given the different life stages we're at,
and then have just honest conversations about it where we listen to one another and critique
each other, but in a fair manner.
Got it?
Okay.
Can't believe I had to actually say that.
God, these motherfuckers.
I had no idea at all.