The Lost Generation

"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: 'I played a flute for you and you did not dance; we sang a dirge for you and you did not mourn'..."


'Lost generation'. It's a term that's been applied to one cohort or another for almost one hundred years now. Most famously applied to the World War I generation and most recently, the present generation of the Great Recession.

Hemingway and real life inspirations for The Sun Also Rises, Spain 1925 

The lost generation of Hemingway and Fitzgerald were those expatriates who restlessly wandered postwar Europe: both energetic and lazy, indulgent and empty, resilient and fragile. The characters in The Sun Also Rises eat, drink, fight, and engage in unsatisfying love affairs.  It's a beautifully simple and honest examination of a group of damaged souls. A group without the blessing of an obvious simple purpose. Anyone who has spent time with a person age 20 to 35 in the last ten years will likely recognize at least some of these characters' qualities.  By those of the post-9/11- Great Recession generation, I have heard it simply called 'so familiar'. Minus some of the exotic locales and bullfights (although maybe not).
Finding a fulfilling job is rare, the world changed while we were in college or high school. Our great war is an economic and psychological one, the wounds we carry are spiritual, and as a counselor and a young person I can testify that we are more truly socially isolated than any group before us.

We eat, drink, fight, and have unsatisfying relationships.

In 20th century England the term "lost generation" meant those who died in the Great War. Especially those young men who were perceived as the best and brightest of their day, wiped out in a short time.

Both instances of the term share the basic heartbreaking acknowledgment of unrequited potential. People that could have been, but were damaged or destroyed unjustly by the times they lived in.

 The Lord is near the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. Ps. 34:18.

The only cure for a spiritual wound is spiritual healing. Moving forward, first remember that although we carry these wounds, we must not let them rob us of our purpose, or our usefulness.

More to come...