How Is Being a Millennial Like Dying in WWI's Trench Warfare?
"We Are The Next Lost Generation"—a Thought Catalog exercise in putting life in perspective.
To be "deracinated" means to be torn up by the roots. The Lost Generation was made up of the 1920s' 20s-somethings, young men and women that were deracinated by World War I. Lives were lost and the ideals of the past were lost with them. Whether or not they had fought on the European front, they were different after the war. The atrocities of war broke them, shattered their once optimistic view of humanity. Their homeland didn't feel like home, and nowhere else did either. With no roots to secure them, they were free but without any meaning. I wonder, are we Millennials any different now?
We didn't grow up during a World War, but September 11th had a similar effect on us. Terrorism destroyed our sense of security, of protection, and left us with a pervading feeling of uneasiness and instability. For those of us that were young when the attacks happened, we subconsciously realized that tomorrow was not a given.
And that's how watching a plane hit a building on the TV is like being part of a generation that suffered 37 million casualties in brutal industrial warfare.
Also sometimes Netflix doesn't load very fast these days.
[Photo: AP]