We wage an unpromising war against altruistic optimism. We are the latter generation of insipid Americans. I'm at a gig because a good friend plays the drums for the headlining band. Everyone has squinted eyes as if he didn’t want to see what he sees. The fellow at my left has a low brow. The lady to my right squints through the smoke to relay the evening’s gossip to her tired friend.
The New London Fire just performed. Good sound, but I wonder two things: London’s last fire was so intense, would the English like to have another, and I also wonder if these band members have ever visited London or know much about The Old London Fire.
I’ve always wondered too, what if a generation was left empty-handed. What would we offer? Would we simply revert to the austere tradition of our fathers? My friend and I recently discussed the differences and similarities of our fathers, and I realized that we are both afraid of becoming.
Turn the music up! That’s where I’m going to go. Rock! It’s so loud, I can’t think or write for that matter. It’s so loud!
So I’m here, writing because I’m at a venue where politics are inadvertently exchanged amongst members of the Irreverent Party. The smoky haze is such that everyone seems to squint preparing for Sartre’s eternity. Perhaps we see life properly. I’d like to think so.
The featured band is now performing to this eager audience and I’m solitary but not alone; for one the multitude has memorized the lyrics to the songs and two I am learning to decipher the multifarious chorus. “We want freedom”, “We are lost”, “We need help”, “Somebody love me”, “We are supercilious and self-professed prophets”… are just a few of the fractional lines that I heard. Still the tavern-stinted choir creates—I should say joins in—the uninterrupted throng of discontented adolescence.
A book of matches is sitting on a table near the back. I open it and observe an allegory.
My thoughts turn to a meeting with my friend from earlier today. We met at Dunkin’ Doughnuts for a coffee and conversation, partly because he was free at the time I called him, and partly because my skin had been showing good color for the past few days (my only defense against good health being a handsome dose of trans fat and a shot of high fructose corn syrup).
I remember little of our conversation outside of our agreement of the most favorable way to peel an orange and Yoplait’s marketing mistakes with Go-Gurt. But I do remember that he spilled a large coffee on my new book. Although he apologized profusely, I couldn’t help but appreciate it. I knew I’d read it now. It was imperfect: it had character and a history of sorts.
Thus our generation seeks its singularly unique history. Its experiences, although thematically similar to former experiences, are still unique because they occur. We run under an overarching dream of reality and we find nothing but further forecast of consequence. In the very running we are caught.
We are driven to give character to “our times”, but at what cost? For we can’t hope to behave in the manner in which we truly desire until we comply to a life of obedience. Obedience is intangible outside of Christ. God has instilled this drive in us that we might abandon all hope of who we are and who we might become in him, for he who would seek his life loses it and he who loses his life for the sake of Jesus Christ will surely find it.
