Another lost generation?

Any luck finding a job? Does your employer still owe you money? Are you eligible for unemployment benefits? These days, all of our conversations sound ominously similar. Friends and acquaintances, everyone under or around 30 and clueless as to what their future holds.

We are a generation that grew up in peace and affluence; the arrogance of youth made us believe we were somehow luckier than the ones born before us.

At school they encouraged us to choose an occupation that suited us best. At university they told us we were free, intellectual, destined to create wonderful things.

At work they showed us we were insignificant, disposable, judged only in terms of our connections.We worked long hours for free, we thanked them when they offered us basic salary.

And now we wear the “unemployed” badge, before we even truly learned what it means to be paid for your labour. Still, most of us are not threatened with starvation or homelessness- at least not as long as our parents keep receiving their pensions.

We watch people suffer around us, and wouldn’t even dare to complain- because we haven’t worked hard our whole lives; we are not pursued by lenders, tax officers and credit card companies; we have no children to feed, and of course we wouldn’t even think of starting a family under these circumstances.

Our dead-end is less tangible than the one faced by our older colleagues, yet this does ot make it any less real, nor does it blunt the feeling of helplessness.

We were raised believing that we would do something in life, that we would contribute to making this world a slightly better place, that an infinite number of paths were opened before us and all we had to do was choose which one to follow.

They nurtured us with the certainty we were able to fly. And just as we were getting ready to make the big leap, we realized that someone had secretly clipped our wings.

Are they afraid of us, I wonder. This generation has lost is way. At night we wander in the streets without any sense of understanding. If they'd let us, we'd probably burn this city down to the last piece of asphalt and steel.

Sometimes we dream of trees growing in the place of skyscrapers, sometimes we fantasize of innocence. Our age no longer justifies our desire to destroy; we've grown, without being granted even an illusion of wisdom and inner peace.

Now we've stored our adolescent souls in formaldehyde, now we've vowed never to speak of maturity, now we've blocked out all false hopes of certainty and order. Every morning we wake up with the taste of rotting expectations on our lips.

If the world ends tomorrow, at least we won't have the time to become losers, a friend said long ago. Too young to die, too old to begin anew. They told us we shall fly, then they clipped our wings ; they told us we were free, before they tightened the chains.