I looked down into a valley filled with stones. A light breeze rustled my hair, lifted odors of dried and freshly cut flowers to surround me with the mystery of their presence.

 

I think life occasionally demands more than we feel we have to give, filling us with doubt, stripping away encouragement leaving us soul-naked to stare into the blank blue sky and seek answers that can only be found by looking within. Yet we do not know where to look in those dreadfully frightening moments and reach outward instead.

 

We go about the task of living, envisioning ourselves as if standing above the fray, examining nuances, seeking ever seeking. Interaction with people, places, objects, animals, all seems somehow shallow, as if the surface of life was peeled away revealing a different, but identical surface that is now a mirror reflecting time but not us.

 

We stroke through bewilderment, as if we’re swimming against rip tides, losing but unwilling to lament, to relax, and think through what we are experiencing, why we experience it.

 

It is not until we tire to the point of spiritual exhaustion that we fall, fail, and finally understand. Life does not demand more than we have to give. Life teaches us how to learn to give anew. It is not about doors opening or closing, time passing or standing still. It is about whom we are, our choices, our paths, and why we make them, why we walk them. The message was not hidden except when bombarding words cluttered the air to obscure our thoughts and vision.

 

Then the waters flowed around us and flooded the valley with new life.

Social media created a platform where each of us can bemoan, belittle, demean, and destroy many things, and people in a way that before social media’s birth people would not do.

We are all aware of sexism, especially after the Supreme Court stripped away a woman’s right to choose.

We are aware of racism practiced by more of us than I ever expected. We, in this time of instant awareness through social media cannot help but be touched by it. Except for the majority of the United States’s Republican Party where racism is a platform of their beliefs.

Anti-Semitism once beaten into the earth by World War II veterans and their spouses supporting them at home, has too become a platform of the United States’s Republican Party.

Anti-Asian activities I believe mostly created using Social Media, is a bloody retreat for the not-right-in-the-head members of the United States’s Republican Party.

Wow. Why? Many white men, no not all, are feeling frustrated by their inability to control their environment the way they did a century ago. Therefore those men, and the women who join in for whatever reason, create and act out socially destructive behaviors.

The United States Supreme Supreme Court in the pre-Trump years attempted to correct much of those things I’ve written above. The court also declared that Ageism is a form of discrimination and should not be practiced.

Enter hear Millennial men, lost in their inability to control their environments. They use social media to attack and ridicule their parents and grandparents. Imagine that? Even after they were told by the Supreme Court that ageism is a form of discrimination.

I imagine doing so, as doing all of the above forms of discrimination makes them feel strong in the social media world they live in and depend on.

Now a lesson in generations. The post World War II generation, also known as the Vietnam War generation, and the Baby Boomer generation started in1946. The average length of a generation in the U.S. is 23 years. So do the math. War World II children1946-1969. Generation X – 1970-1993. Generation Y – 1994-2017. Generation Z the future Zoomers, 2018-2041.

Wait? Where are the millennials? There are an age group not a generation. Those currently calling themselves Generation Z are members of an age group.

Why have generations other than a way of giving vent to frustrated generation X men (squeeze in millennials here)? It’s all about advertising. Before WWII no one used the idea of generations to separate people according to when they were born. Nobody cared.

So to everyone who gleefully practices ageism as a way to feel macho? You’re next. When the parents and grandparents you now rank on for personal prestige die? It’s time for the face in the mirror to slide into the chamber of horrors you created for those who once loved you.