Definition - #301 - #18 - What’s in your personal “reservoir”?

(What “material things” are in your “reservoir”?)
(What “values” are in your “reservoir”?
(What “ideas” are in your “reservoir”?)

Everyone has some kind of “reservoir”.
You expect certain things in life.
You are disappointed if you don’t see a way to get certain things …. those things in your “reservoir”!

Does everyone have the same “reservoir”?

It seems that each generation has its own “reservoir” of things it expects, things it accepts, things it thinks are already there.
Each generation doesn’t want to know about another generation! “Don’t talk to me about walking 3 miles to school in the wintertime”; “Growing a garden or no food to eat!”; The “depression”!; No peace in the world; The “holocaust”; Nazis; the “Japs” and Pearl Harbor!; The embarrassment of divorce!…. This was “long ago”!
What was it like with no wireless phones, no cell phones, with no instant communication, with no war, no homeland security threats? …… But don’t tell us your “old” stories!

What does one generation do to communicate what it already went through? Can one generation learn something from a different generation? …. If nobody wants to listen, what then?
Will a generation have to go through the same mistakes, the same horrors that another generation has already gone through!
It seems as though the older generations can offer nothing. It has the experience. It has lived through the rough times and it somehow managed to survive. It has its own culture, its own values, it even has its own code of ethics.

What about the new generation?
It has cell phones…There goes privacy and quiet, a regard for someone else’s space.
It has computers .... both for instant information and games. Which do you think its being used for?
It has instant communication… both for emergencies and social chit-chat. Which do you think it’s being used for?
Has business changed because everyone is instantly available? Has “Email” changed the success of business? Or, do we have just more communication?
Sure, some of you use these “discoveries” to a most useful purpose; but how about the majority?
Has this “new” generation opened up a pandora’s box? Do they know what they’re paying for the use of these new “discoveries”? Has anyone checked? Is anyone willing to try, and risk the scorn of the mass media and the general public?
Perhaps you just open the “box” and “deal” with whatever happens….. It certainly is a way!

What about “futures” in each generation?
In the 1930’s the depression made “futures” look bleak. There was no money, no jobs, little opportunity. No “future”! That generation had to pull itself out of one heck of hole! How did it do that? What can be learned from these events? But if one generation can’t talk to another, what then?
In the 1940’s we had a world wide political crisis. We went to war. If war is such a terrible thing, why did we go? If we can’t discuss the issues, the threats of the “what ifs”, the security of the oceans, the weapons of mass destruction and why the decision was made; then the generations have nothing to learn from one another. I guess the fact that we did, indeed, survive and could offer a “future” is lost on another generation.

In the 1960’s we had a generation that was “against”. It had nothing constructive to offer, just escape or criticism. It did have an isolated few that discovered the computer, the technical revolution, etc. but in general, we didn’t seem to try to discover the meaning of things. We did a wonderful job finding ways to avoid issues, avoid making the hard decisions. The “future” wasn’t so important.

In the 80’s we began to feel a stomach ache. War was in limbo. We were confused. Our Government wasn’t so “straight arrow” with us. We were drifting, rudderless. The future was a dim idea … necessary but dim.

In the 90’s and up until now, we seemed faced with huge problems …. no answers, but huge problems. There’s another possible war or two. The world seems to be breaking up into parts. Leaders seem to be apart from their masses. Countries seem to have at least two agendas. One is from the government spokesmen and the other are the so-called spokesman of the “people’. Even that observation seems strained. Police and state security have monitored public response. Mob violence either religious or ethnic seem the order of the day.

Is there anything to be learned from how we survived our earlier traumas?
Can one generation even talk to the other?
Have we entered a new generation … a generation of frustration, hopelessness, avoidance?
Can one generation even talk to the other?
Is all we have to say dictated by the mob, the government leaders, or the press and the media?
Where can logic and reason be heard? Will anyone talk “straight”? Does everyone have an “agenda”?
Exactly, where is our “future”?
Is the American “pie” big enough to support every one? Where does the “pie” come from? If hard work and planning created the “pie”, how long can it exist for people and institutions that only take pieces of “pie” and don’t add to the “pie”? Where is the “future”?
Other generations have the experience of “no food”, “no job”, hardships, global destruction. Is there nothing to be learned from those who have already experienced the hardships of a “dim” future?
Can this generation continue to exist on the “pie” that was already in existence before it came into being? Is their future the size of the “pie”? Does their future end when the “pie” is no longer big enough?

NOTHING will change until the new generation asks itself “Where’s my future?”
There will be no need to ask this question until the “pie” begins to run out!
As long as this new generation feels it can “avoid” the consequences, there’s no need for change!

I hope “they” have time to “work things out”!
I hope they know how ,or can find out how “to work things out”!

Unless there’s a monumental change in attitudes, the “experienced generation” will merely “drop out”. (except in cases where they have paid their dues and have a vested interest in maintaining a level of security for the remaining time they have left on this earth!) What “successful alternative” have they?