This is a post about ‘pipelines’, but perhaps not the kind of pipelines you may have been thinking of.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of wondering about society and in particular younger generation society. It all seems so disorganized now. Before it used to be so easy. But what am I talking about here?
I will use my timeline as an example, but there are other, equally valid, timelines which result in the same sorts of conclusions.
Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was in my late teens and early 20’s there were a handful of different social pathways one could choose from. There was the straight & narrow (S&N). The S&N crowd liked everything they were told to like (like American Top 40 music), got good grades, went to some Ivy league school and then ultimately became Dr. Mengele for some glowie agency.
Then there was the counter-culture, the rebels. To use music genre as an example, these were the hardcore punk and rap enthusiasts. They dressed the part, acted the part and maybe…became the part (or not). As time progressed, one of two things happened in these social circles. In other words, you came to a fork in the road. Your choice was either to fully embrace this lifestyle and go join one of the wholesome organizations like the Ayrian Brotherhood or the Black Panthers (or the SLA) (heavy sarcasm here). That, or they realized this wasn’t who they really were and they outgrew these social genres and joined the rest of the human rat race.
Members of the latter of these two ‘pipelines’ didn’t go to Ivy league schools (or even college at all), got only average grades, and when on to become Asst Managers at Walmart, low budget lawyers or John Q. Public robots.
The point here is, there were these relatively easily understood pipelines which you could choose from to determine your future. There were many others, but I just used these two as a tongue and cheek example. But the people of the day knew what those pipelines were and where they led to. Those ‘pipelines’ today are much more confused. I mean, where does the young adult wearing pajamas in public pipeline lead to? Or the Tik-Tok poser pipeline, where does that lead to? Where does the lumberjack plaid shirt and rolled up jeans with logger boots (but will never touch a chainsaw, and loathes the logging industry) pipeline lead to?
In my abstract mind I see all of these pipelines leading to a giant effluent pond where they come shooting out of the end only to splash down in a retention basin with no hope of escape. A pond full of others from all different pipelines where there was no end-game (at all), just an end to the pipeline…and then nothing. No job, no work ethic, no goals and no future. What troubles me is many of these people view this as having ‘succeeded’. Yes, they still have a pulse, but that’s about it. And, from there, there is nothing left but despair and disillusionment. That ‘pipeline’ didn’t prepare them for the world they got dumped into, and they knew this (or should have known it) all along. Not only did the pipeline not prepare them for adult society, worse, it further isolated them from it.
I was talking with the son of my wife’s brother (sort of like my nephew-in-law) a while back, and this guy is a super-woke ‘hipster’ complete with the neck beard and the rolled up jeans. He was lamenting not being able to find a job which paid him what he thought he was worth. I asked him what his criteria for said job was, and oh boy, did he have a list!
With virtually no experience but a college degree, he indicated that anything less than $150k-190k for a salary was completely unacceptable. His list included things like the ability to take months at a time off from work to enrich his personal life, completely flexible schedule with no structure, and accountability for deadlines he confidently laughed… “Well, that isn’t my job! Someone else can do that.” And he was honestly dumbfounded why he hadn’t managed to find someone willing to accept these terms!
So, I decided to push back a little and see where this led. Myself, as an Aerospace Engineer nearing retirement, and in charge of multiple engineering teams, I asked him… “What if your terms are completely unacceptable to an employer?”. His response just about floored me (and it wasn’t short either; this guy had spent time rehearsing and reinforcing this mentality, that much was obvious). He said (and I will abbreviate it) that essentially then no job was worth that level of sacrifice of his personal life. Further, he had validated this posture based on in depth conversations with all of his peers and all of his mentors. I could see in his eyes that he truly had conviction and believed what he was saying.
That level of, um…’disconnect’…from reality is where all these pipelines lead to. And now you may have a better mental picture of those pipelines all emptying out into this huge retention pond of, well, sewage.
I think the thing which caught me off guard the most was this kid’s level of arrogance about the whole matter. Not only was he 100% committed to what he was saying, but I was the stupid one for not understanding and heartily agreeing. It really went that far too.
This is a major problem brewing on the horizon of society today, and it’s only going to get worse.
I’m not sure what the final solution is, but part of it is first understanding the problem. And, the problem is…this mindset doesn’t just happen in a single day. It takes years to develop that sort of a mentality. So, clearly we have a major pipeline problem in society today.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of wondering about society and in particular younger generation society. It all seems so disorganized now. Before it used to be so easy. But what am I talking about here?
I will use my timeline as an example, but there are other, equally valid, timelines which result in the same sorts of conclusions.
Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was in my late teens and early 20’s there were a handful of different social pathways one could choose from. There was the straight & narrow (S&N). The S&N crowd liked everything they were told to like (like American Top 40 music), got good grades, went to some Ivy league school and then ultimately became Dr. Mengele for some glowie agency.
Then there was the counter-culture, the rebels. To use music genre as an example, these were the hardcore punk and rap enthusiasts. They dressed the part, acted the part and maybe…became the part (or not). As time progressed, one of two things happened in these social circles. In other words, you came to a fork in the road. Your choice was either to fully embrace this lifestyle and go join one of the wholesome organizations like the Ayrian Brotherhood or the Black Panthers (or the SLA) (heavy sarcasm here). That, or they realized this wasn’t who they really were and they outgrew these social genres and joined the rest of the human rat race.
Members of the latter of these two ‘pipelines’ didn’t go to Ivy league schools (or even college at all), got only average grades, and when on to become Asst Managers at Walmart, low budget lawyers or John Q. Public robots.
The point here is, there were these relatively easily understood pipelines which you could choose from to determine your future. There were many others, but I just used these two as a tongue and cheek example. But the people of the day knew what those pipelines were and where they led to. Those ‘pipelines’ today are much more confused. I mean, where does the young adult wearing pajamas in public pipeline lead to? Or the Tik-Tok poser pipeline, where does that lead to? Where does the lumberjack plaid shirt and rolled up jeans with logger boots (but will never touch a chainsaw, and loathes the logging industry) pipeline lead to?
In my abstract mind I see all of these pipelines leading to a giant effluent pond where they come shooting out of the end only to splash down in a retention basin with no hope of escape. A pond full of others from all different pipelines where there was no end-game (at all), just an end to the pipeline…and then nothing. No job, no work ethic, no goals and no future. What troubles me is many of these people view this as having ‘succeeded’. Yes, they still have a pulse, but that’s about it. And, from there, there is nothing left but despair and disillusionment. That ‘pipeline’ didn’t prepare them for the world they got dumped into, and they knew this (or should have known it) all along. Not only did the pipeline not prepare them for adult society, worse, it further isolated them from it.
I was talking with the son of my wife’s brother (sort of like my nephew-in-law) a while back, and this guy is a super-woke ‘hipster’ complete with the neck beard and the rolled up jeans. He was lamenting not being able to find a job which paid him what he thought he was worth. I asked him what his criteria for said job was, and oh boy, did he have a list!
With virtually no experience but a college degree, he indicated that anything less than $150k-190k for a salary was completely unacceptable. His list included things like the ability to take months at a time off from work to enrich his personal life, completely flexible schedule with no structure, and accountability for deadlines he confidently laughed… “Well, that isn’t my job! Someone else can do that.” And he was honestly dumbfounded why he hadn’t managed to find someone willing to accept these terms!
So, I decided to push back a little and see where this led. Myself, as an Aerospace Engineer nearing retirement, and in charge of multiple engineering teams, I asked him… “What if your terms are completely unacceptable to an employer?”. His response just about floored me (and it wasn’t short either; this guy had spent time rehearsing and reinforcing this mentality, that much was obvious). He said (and I will abbreviate it) that essentially then no job was worth that level of sacrifice of his personal life. Further, he had validated this posture based on in depth conversations with all of his peers and all of his mentors. I could see in his eyes that he truly had conviction and believed what he was saying.
That level of, um…’disconnect’…from reality is where all these pipelines lead to. And now you may have a better mental picture of those pipelines all emptying out into this huge retention pond of, well, sewage.
I think the thing which caught me off guard the most was this kid’s level of arrogance about the whole matter. Not only was he 100% committed to what he was saying, but I was the stupid one for not understanding and heartily agreeing. It really went that far too.
This is a major problem brewing on the horizon of society today, and it’s only going to get worse.
I’m not sure what the final solution is, but part of it is first understanding the problem. And, the problem is…this mindset doesn’t just happen in a single day. It takes years to develop that sort of a mentality. So, clearly we have a major pipeline problem in society today.