Talking About MY Generation

Remember when you first watched Reality Bites and found yourself frustratedly thinking, "This is supposed to be about ME?"

Maybe you don't. Maybe, for you, being a member of Generation X meant you connected with the sort of character who says things like, "I have a planet of regret" and "I am not under orders to make the world a better place."

Or maybe you resented the fact that this guy was supposed to represent all that is your generation.

That's assuming you even gave it that much thought. I certainly did. Because I am fascinated by the idea of Generation X even as I am repulsed by it. I am convinced that it can be a force for good and disgusted at the caricature it is always in danger of becoming.

Which is why Jeff Gordinier's book, X Saves The World, has so much appeal for me. Well, it's not the only reason. I don't enjoy just anything written about Generation X (exhibit A: Reality Bites), but I do when it is as insightful, as smart, as funny, and as engaging as Gordinier's book.

The subtitle to X Saves The World is How Generation X Got the Shaft But Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking.  The brilliance of Gordinier's book is his recognition of and appreciation for the fact that we, as a generation, have a love/hate relationship with the idea of ourselves as a collective. While we love the idea of being able to do something, we resist the institutionalization and commercialization of whatever it is we might do. There's a high degree of irony even in the title of the book; we are a generation that appreciates irony (and one that hates being labeled as "a generation that...").

What Gordinier does is explore the possibilities of a generation that (there I go again) felt born too late right up until it felt born too early. A generation trying to understand itself while, at the same time, wishing it weren't so obsessed with itself. A generation that would like to put something worthwhile into the world, but wants to do so without embracing a cliche. A generation that gets behind the idea of "Yes We Can" even as it is suspicious of all things chanted.

The title and brevity of the book might make readers mistake it for lightweight. Gordinier's book is anything but. It is passionate, thought-provoking, and thoroughly moving. It isn't trying to speak for a generation and, in not trying to speak, it does speak.

Maybe I can best explain this by sharing a story (we are a generation that loves stories). When I was a senior in high school, I walked into my dad's office with the Alice In Chains album Jar of Flies. My only preface to playing the song "Don't Follow" was to say, "This explains everything." To my dad's credit, he listened to the song and didn't laugh me out of his office. We are a generation trying not only to explain ourselves to ourselves, but to explain ourselves to others.

What I love most about X Saves The World is that I can hand it to my dad and say, "this won't explain everything, but it might clear up some things." And maybe that's a lot of what my generation is trying to do.