The Decline and Fall of Accumulated Wisdom
The leading edge of the post-World War II baby boom generation is approaching the beginning of its eighth decade, and the accumulated wisdom and experience of that group will soon disappear if nothing is done to preserve it. Some members of that wave of humanity haven’t made it this far for one reason or another and have already passed on. Any closely held thoughts and philosophies they generated are essentially inaccessible save those recorded by prominent individuals. Does that matter? Does the accumulated life experience of the average baby boomer have value? Indeed, does the accumulated life experience of the average person offer us anything either? I believe it does.
If you were born in 1946 as I was, then you are part of the first wave of that generation. The baby boom is said to have begun in 1946 and spans the next twenty years. Historical dates for the beginning and end of any interval in history are arbitrary, but VE day (May 7th in Commonwealth countries and May 8th otherwise) marked the beginnings of many nuclear families with the imminent return of troops to their home countries. My own father’s separation date from the armed forces was November 30th, 1945 and my birthday is August 23, 1946. You do the math.
If one was born and in the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand as a “Boomer”, he is likely to have grown up in a pleasant and prosperous post-war environment. Those born to the families of war-torn Europe or Japan had a very different childhood experience. Children on both sides of the iron curtain lived with the impact of the Cold War and were subjected to the influence of various political and economic realities. Historians and journalists well document the history of those times. Movies, fiction, and non-fiction books provide insight into those years as well, but the experiences of the average citizen who lived through the events of the last seven decades remain more or less obscure.
The story of the era that began for many of us in 1946 is portrayed in works of the artistic and the academic presented through the filter of their trained mind’s eye. No matter how thorough and honest each has been in the exposition of history, their collective work is but a tip of the iceberg of human experience. The lives and times of average men and women have just as much to offer in the way of insights and philosophies.
The word venerable essentially means old or having reached a “certain age,” but it is also an honorific. In traditional society the wisdom and experience of an elder are often revered. A venerable one is considered august and revered and often depicted as an elderly sage with a white beard. These images were of a time past when the opinion of an elder was sought out. That is rarely the case now. Since 1946 we experienced the economic expansion of the post-war era, the tensions of the Korean conflict, and a series of wars in Indochina and the Middle East, not to mention some revolutions and the rise of dictators in various parts of the world.
We have had to adjust to stock market volatility, sky-high interest rates in the 1980’s, the rise of domestic terrorism, several economic boom and bust cycles, and effects of continued militarism in the world. Many of us emigrated from the lands of our birth to new places in the hopes of finding a better life, and in many cases did. We adjusted to change as best we could, made decisions both good and bad, raised our families, found careers at some level, contributed to society, and have now moved on to life as senior citizens. The “gray tsunami” is often represented as a population that will tax the resources of society. We Boomers have become a burden rather than an asset.
The lives of Baby Boomers have played out against a complex and ever changing socio-economic and political backdrop. The range of different conditions that affected individuals in different parts of the world is difficult to comprehend, and their individual narratives equally diverse. The life lessons of the Baby Boom generation, individually and collectively, are on the edge of decline as that population ages and declines. I believe there is a place for the memoirs of the average man in the collective consciousness of the world. I posit that the memoirs and philosophies of the Boomers (the elders in society), the venerable among us, are of significant value. It is with that thought in mind that I decided to write a memoir.
The genre of memoir writing is growing in popularity. Public personalities push out memoirs at an exceptional rate these days. Each of them already has a public profile, an audience for their stories, and a ready market. How many of them do the writing and preliminary editing themselves? How many of them use ghost writers? How many of them have to pitch their book to a publisher? If you are like me, with no public profile, no buzz about what you have to say, and no group of dedicated followers to buy your story, you may see memoir writing as a pointless task. I took a different tack.
There are three cogent ideas behind my writing. The first, and perhaps the least weighty of my motives is to leave a legacy of my life history, thoughts, and philosophy for my children and hopefully for generations of descendants to come. The second was to gain some insight into the nature of the self that a memoir or autobiography attempts to portray. My primary motivation for writing a book was to create a memoir that might inform and motivate others to write their life’s narrative. My mission is to promote memoir writing for the common man in order to preserve an image of our collective life experience and accumulated wisdom. In my next post, I will elaborate on that project. In the meantime, I would appreciate reactions to the idea that the memoirs of the common man have something to offer all of us. Until the next post….
As always, your faithful blogger,
L Alan Weiss (Larry) – Author
About the Author
