This idea of individuality in the United States right now is amazing. The vast majority of people between the ages of 30 and 60 live exactly the same and pride themselves on individuality. I know a really sweet couple that are living in Portland, fighting the system, being individuals. They are vegan and very cutting edge. I know another couple that live deep in the burbs in Colorado who are extremely dull edged, eating lots of refined white carbs and processed meat-like substances. They are extremely worried about how they are doing as parents and love doing work on their house because it really spotlights who they are as individuals.
All of this to say, both couples would probably be upset if you told them they were the same. I think the one couple in Portland fights against the current sometimes and the other couple seem to be just letting the riptide take them out to sea but both are heading in the same direction.
The question I am wrestling with recently is that intentions mean very little. If you intend on fighting the system but you wake up at forty with two poorly behaving kids, a late model car, three hundred thousand dollar house, a job you don't enjoy going to, only consuming with very little contributing, does it matter how you vote, what cool tattoos you have or what drugs you did in your twenties?
I don't understand why the hipsters of our generation are completely ignoring the hippies of the last generation? Hippies who are broke, ailing in health, leaning heavily on the system they fought and generally coated in a great malaise about how things used to be.
This all being said, I am not sure what we are supposed to do in our twenties and thirties to fight this outcome, but I'm working on that and dammit, that makes me an individual.
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