Recall the phrase the “Lost Generation”, which defined the disillusioned people of the post World War 1 epoch. If they were lost, then what are we? What of our generation? How are we to be defined? We cannot be accurately categorized as lost. Nor may we be considered profoundly or even minutely found. To be lost implies that at some point that lost thing was found and concrete and fulfilled.
We, on the other hand, are the “Invisible generation”; a whole generation of bountiful nothingness. We lack the substance, as whole, to give to the cause of being lost. We are too jaded and cynical for this seeming luxury. A whole generation; my whole generation; the first on this planet, of this species, whose lifespan is less than the generation that came before it. We float, float on comfortable clouds of triviality, manufactured and force fed by those not of our generation. The clouds are blinding and binding. They impede our progress, and distract us from truth and self-actualization. These clouds grab tightly to our limp wrists and lead us on our own uneventful existence. They control the essence and ethos of our lives. It’s easy; everything is easy. And so we float along, and often the view from our airy unattached perspective allows us the unfettered capacity to fool ourselves.
The surface of our reality seems fine and ample. I say not perfect for all see the boil and toil of primordial grumblings bubbling to the surface from time to time. We are offered only glimpses of truth and expression, and of the darker nothingness and void that lies beneath. These clouds of status quo glide to and fro on a plane quite parallel and yet increasingly distant from true reality. The ramped influx of superficiality does much to disallow a peer though the pours of the surface into something deeper.
Tragically, our generation offers too few people of greatness, ready and willing to step down from their gratifying clouds. Truly, how can one blame the majority? Stepping from these substantial clouds has often, though history, led individuals down the path of much tragedy and death. It would seem that truth with its utter magnitude and power often acts to push its finders into the outskirts and back alleys of society’s strata. The clouds are tainted windows. On the outside, the majority is blocked from seeing past the murky, convoluted surface. It is from the perspective of the minorities, which have stepped down and currently reside below the clouds, a lucid window that allows the individual to see straight through the corruption and darkness of the deceiving clouds.
Presently, below the surface is nothing; it is void. This, though, is not a permanent constant, but a saddening consequence. The surface is satiated and overflowing; bursting at the proverbial seams with triviality. The negative space below the surface is where history delves its probing scope in order to define a generation. They search for a unified or fragmented cry of truth, expression and sometimes darkness or pain. We are an invisible generation. It will be as if we were never here; wholly aloof. From this frozen dot in time, the only deep and lasting mark I can see my generation making is in the form of a massive crater; a hole; a deadly blemish upon the landscape of this earth.
All the aspects that define a society, a generation, are, by us, found in looking to the past. What is retro, but unoriginality? We are collectively led to feel as if everything has been done before. We are socialized to feel as if there is nothing left to do or try, and that the good ole’ years are far behind us. It’s as if we have missed the boat; the transcendent vessel of mortal liberation. Many use this as an effortless excuse to settle. Everyone is settling, thus, the clouds are exponentially growing thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker; encompassing hope and swallowing self-determination. Maybe we will eternally be defined as the “Apathetic Generation”. The unreserved apathy is palpable in the smog-filled air. It helps to fuel the existence and abilities of those who manufacture the clouds. My generation, in majority, doesn’t care enough about anything; we find it ridiculous, comical, or pointless to care. We are rabbits poisoned by the seeds of apathy. The potent poison flows threw all the veins of our muddled existence. It weakens our being, and makes us an easy prey for the wolves of established generations and dogma.

There is still time for us to find our truth, and allow it to permeate through the pours of surface society into the void. We have the intelligence and capacity to be great; we lack the motivation. Through deep and meaningful introspection we may all step down from our collective clouds, and come together as one generation united in commonality to rip a positive hole through the surface of things, and in doing so, find ourselves and our vision. Only then may we fill up the void with our own proud generation’s actions and aspirations, until that void is so full that it expands to touch the soul of the universe. And so, we are the ______ generation. Only we, our amalgamated selves, may decide our fate, our destiny.