There is an oft repeated sentiment in Homer: That the next generation is always weaker than the former. That if you keep going back in time, you will find men who could move boulders with their bare hands; men who were heroes, possessing the strength and apprehension of Gods. But Homer operates on the level of pure perception. That is, he is uninterrupted by reality.
People just think that they were better when they were younger. They ascribe attributes to themselves that they never actually had. Our giant fathers appear as supermen. Our creaking bodies mythologize the easy muscles of youth. We remember triumphing over such a big world and forget how small we were. And, the older we get, the more outrageous our claims become.
Yet, having said that, I think this next generation is soft.
They aren’t gentle. To be gentle one must be strong. It is strength left unused. They are soft. As vacuous and vicious as any preceding generation, they are also weak. They lack an independence of spirit that every preceding generation developed as a simple matter of growing up. Constantly plugged in –help only a phone call away– they are networked, hive-minded and coddled. They don’t even know what animals are.
And they’re unfamiliar with consequences.
A few nights ago, at work, a tattoo artist was hanging out at the bar. He was drinking shots and bitching about the younger people who came into his shop, demanded tattoos and then complained about the pain. They just don’t expect it to hurt. Some of these kids want tattoos on their hands. They’ve never had work done yet won’t listen to advice. That’s fine. That’s youth. But, the moment it starts, they try to beg off.
“What did you think?” he’ll ask. “That this was like buying a t-shirt?”
I told him about some guy in his early twenties who came up to me at the bar looking for rubbing alcohol. He had a scrape. A little one. We couldn’t help him out and he was in a panic. Apparently, a scrape on his elbow was going to kill him dead in downtown Toronto.
He asked for whiskey. I gave him a shot and he said: “Not for the pain; not to drink.”
“Best thing to do with it,” I said.
“To disinfect.”
As if I had no idea.
I gave him some napkins. He poured the whiskey on the napkins, rubbed it into the “wound” and started squealing like a pig. Hissing like a snake. Jumping up and down like a kangaroo. In the middle of a crowded restaurant. “This hurts!” he said through clenched jaw. “I’ve never done this before!”
How the fuck, I wondered, does someone get into their twenties without ever pouring booze on a cut? Without knowing that it stings? But just a little and not for long. And why is he bragging about it?
“Have you ever been punched in the face?” tattoo guy asked me.
“More times than I care to remember,” I said. “Deserved most of them too.”
“So you know what it feels like.”
“Yup. Been kicked in the face too.”
“It’s not nothing. It hurts. It fucks you up”
It does. Your eyes fill with water. You can’t see or think. You’re dazed and dizzy. Catching a good one in the face is not a pleasant experience. It does fuck you up. But, if it’s happened a few times, you can get right through it. Sometimes.
Depending.
“Most of these kids have never been punched in the face.” He had a shot. This guy knew that booze was better spent on brains than elbows. “Some guy was in the shop the other day. Little guy. Got a parking ticket and was talking all this shit about — I wish I was there, I would of kicked that guy’s ass. So I overstepped my bounds a bit because he was someone else’s customer. But he just kept going on.”
“What’d you do?”
“You seen the parking ticket guy?”
“Yeah. Big guy with a beard.”
“Well, I just say to the kid: I dunno. I think that guy would kick your ass. He’s a pretty big guy. He says to me: I’m a pretty big guy too. I say: Really, you look like a little prick with a big mouth to me.”
“I thought you were going to say you punched him in the face.”
“Naw.” He smiles. “But the kid just shuts right up. I mean, one minute he’s going on about how he’d kick this guy’s ass and how tough he is, then I say one thing and he just shuts up. And I’m a little guy. He just hangs his head and sits there.”
“Worse things than getting beat up,” I say.
“Yeah, these kids have no idea about consequences.”
I like any customer who thinks most of the problems in the world boil down to people not being punched in the face enough. It’s a position I agree with. More people should be punched in the face.
Most of these kids have spent too much time insulting people with the whole internet between them and anonymity on their side. This breeds a total lack of character. They’re full of vileness. Most of them lie as easily as they breathe. They’re the sort of people who will heckle from a crowd but never stand against one. It’s sad, pathetic and dangerous. Cults grow in that shit.
It’s fine to insult someone but you should always know — they might punch you in the face. If you’re not willing to take one on the nose, then keep your mouth shut. I have a lot of bad qualities but I’ve always been willing to get punched in the face. I have that going for me.
It’s not much.
8 comments
Ryan Kinner
August 4, 2008 at 4:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Excellent work. I’m only 26 but I agree whole-heartedly. That’s why I don’t own a cell phone or a t.v.
David Porter
August 5, 2008 at 2:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Material like this should be taught in school. I am fully connected, because it is convenient, but have “been there done that” with life. When you crash and burn often enough, you start to realize it is harder to give up than to try again, at least for your soul. I know every generation thinks the new kids are going to hell in a handbasket, but this current generation idolizes petty thugs and criminals on an unprecedented scale.
We can only hope that at least some of the youth today have the moral fibre to pull their heads out of their asses and carry us forward.
Patrick
August 6, 2008 at 3:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve always been secretly grateful to the fellow at a pool party who held my head underwater then smacked me in the face and cracked my rib.
He’d warned me that he didn’t like me splashing in his face while he chatted up a girl. I didn’t realize he was a water polo player with a few incapacitating tricks up his sleeve. I gave him one last slap of water and then…
I grew the fuck up that night.
Olivia
August 6, 2008 at 12:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sometimes I wish someone would punch me in the face.
Raz
August 7, 2008 at 1:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, these people piss me off. Until my junior year of high school, I was at my heaviest 90 lbs. I got punched in the face a shit-ton. It was a good lesson, too. I’m not, in my wildest dreams gonna think I can kick anyone’s ass.
Getting beat up a lot is the best life lesson. Parents shouldn’t have stopped. Either way, I know pain. I’m not gonna pretend I’m the biggest, baddest motherfucker around (even at a stout 6’1″ 185, now).
Mentality like that is stupid, and the only time I’d ever come close to thinking like the examples cited, is to sit down people like in the examples. You just get smart with them, or counter their bravado with some disregard for what they’re spitting and they’ll sit down real quick. These people can usually sense when someone has truly lived, gotten beaten up a lot. They won’t even flinch at you.
I think this generation just needs something to fear.
Raz
Ryan Oakley
August 7, 2008 at 6:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Note to self: My readers are strongly in favor of face-punching.
Dugie
August 9, 2008 at 8:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Eh, I was always a smart kid, when I had a job in sales I’d bite my lip and stay out of trouble. But after going into the trades… expect a fight, and it’ll be dirty as hell. I don’t like fighting so I’ll do every thing I can to make sure the asshole regrets starting it in the first place.
David Kendall
October 7, 2008 at 8:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A resounding yes from over here. Part of me believes/hopes that those who refuse to grow up get to be Darwined out of the gene pool by those that have grown up (the face-punchees and the face-punchers, respectively).
@5 Raz also made a fleeting reference to something that should have been touched on, either by the Owl or the commenters, and that’s parents. When I was a kid and teen, I was a real annoying kid (I’ve often thought to myself that if present me ever met past me, I probably would have given past me a punch in the head and told him/me to grow up), basically being obnoxious to everyone, and as a result didn’t have any friends or any chance at all of passing my genetic material on to the next generation. Then I realized how stupid it is to act like a prick (especially by choice) and grew up, got friends, and got married and had kids. I’d like to think that I learned several things as a kid and teen (remember about adult me wanting to punch kid me?) and that if my kids don’t grow up as well (I’m not really expecting much of them now, at ages 6 and 3 after all!) I’ll pass along the experiences I had a kid as a warning.
Those of us that have grown up had our own “face as a punching bag stories”, if we don’t pass those along to our kids, the blame for the degradation of society lays squarely at our feet, it is our job to tell the younger generation what we learned.