4:30 AM. And I've already been up for an hour.

I spent part of that hour surfing the net. Found T-shirt hell. I realized I'm a bit out of step with consumerism in the "00's". People had posted pics of themselves to the site, under the name "I'm a T-shirt Hell wearing whore". Some of the pics were nudes. Curious--would these people send nude photos to a category called "I'm a Nike-wearing whore?"

Ooh--funny, though. And no, that's not a nude. You don't need me to find you nudes on the 'net, do you?

That said, some of the shirts are terrific. Prime among them: "Jesus did it for the chicks" and this one (for all you HTML geeks). But the one that had me muffling giggles reads: "WWJD?" Go look. Honourable mention also to this.

That WWJD thing bugs me anyway. Especially when you consider that some folks think Jesus would have been kicking someone's ass. I much prefer the "What Would Jerry Do?" interpretation--oh, and this.

I spent a lot of yesterday in an apparently aimless rage at not much in particular. If anyone were to ask, I suppose I'd say I felt a bit cheated--the "angry" part of the angry white male.

Why? I mean, what was I so entitled to that I feel cheated of it? Oh I don't know. I suppose it was a residual hangover from an editorial about "kids today"--written of course by someone theoretically older and wiser.

I'm no longer able by any stretch of the imagination to refer to myself as a kid. But the point of the editorial is that lacking the strong pulls of anything like a feeling of civic, religious, or moral duty, today's kids have turned what they consume into their definition. They apparently can't think either.

Hogwash. It's just that they have been given neither the incentive nor the teaching to think critically about anything. And why should they? The world, they are frequently told, promises them nothing. They have what they can grab--nothing else.

There was an article on the front page of the local daily that showed a burned-out house, with accompanying damage to the neighbour's property. One of the quotes from the resident (rental tenant) of the burned house said something like:

"Well, yeah, it was supposed to be a house-wrecking party. I mean ten people got kicked out when they sold out. And it's better if we wreck it than if some soulless corporation comes in just to knock it down anyway."

Here is a person who doubtless would scream blue murder if I incinerated his private property.

In the same establishment where I was reading this, a man in his late fifties was bitching about how he'd seen a young man with a purple mohawk walking around downtown with two goth chicks.

"Yeah, y'know, he ain't getting any jobs with that haircut." he opined.
"Uh-hu. But he doesn't give a damn anyway, right?" said another "He just wants his welfare check so he can get his drugs, and when that runs out he'll just steal something."

And here sat I, disgusted with all of them. The men in the café. The guy in the paper and his friends. The only person on the planet for whom I felt the slightest affection at that moment was the waitress, because she had coffee.

That was the sort of sullen, childish, annoyed rage I felt yesterday, when I told myself that the world was supposed to be better than this.

I grew up in the early seventies-to-eighties, like many of you. I suppose, if I thought about it much, that I rather expected to go into some sort of office-bound profession. I would work eight hours a day and come home to my wife and kids, like my father did.

Not that that was always the case--my family knew people who were divorced, drunk, or on welfare. But it was the example I had.

The Vietnam war hadn't yet ended when I entered kindergarten, and at the war's end I think there was something of a surge of optimism. The world was more peaceful. (And it always seemed to me that that trend continued right up until some crackhead at the Electoral College put Bush on the throne. I'm not blaming him for the way the world is--The hypocrite is as much a product of his times as I am).

Computers were emerging, theoretically they would make life easier for us--take some of the dull drudgery from the day-to-day. Work was mutating in interesting ways, but there was enough around if you weren't congenitally defective or lazy.

I expected to be married by the time I was twenty-five . . . three kids by now. Hmmm. Kinda missed that dealine. Damned emancipation of women, I suppose?

Where O Where did that bright shining future go? Wail! Wail!

The short answer is that I was feeling sorry for myself and deluded yesterday. It's not an uncommon phenomenon among the unemployed. There weren't never gonna be no revolution per se. The world resurged into hippidom in the nineties (a good thing) and what we're kiving through is something of a reaction from those older and more soured on their dreams than I am.

When I get sulky and childish like this I have to remind myself that we live in the world we create by our every action. It is best to hope that the just will outnumber and outlast the bastards (of all stripes), and that the struggle will always continue.

Where did that future go? I still have it here in my pocket. I dust it off once in a while. It's a bit worn but it looks a lot like I remember it.

Occasionally I think of my great-granddad. He was killed during the war (I'd better specify: World War II). Oh, not like that--he was walking home from the pub in the blackout and got hit by a car. While it might well have been the way he might have preferred to go, I can't help but think how sad it was that he didn't get to see the war end. What was on his mind, I wonder? Since the year of his death is unknown to me, did he have any idea that the war would end favourably for the Allies?

What about all the people in the US and Canada who came to the end of their lives in the midst of the depression? What was left for them but hope?

My point is that the seemingly soulless generation we are raising has its own roots. They have their beliefs and their hopes, and I hope and believe that those dreams are big enough for the world.

When next I feel angry at the stupid drivers, punk kids, or old farts, I hope I come back to this post and remember that none of this is new, or particularly special. I sometimes have visions of Joseph watching his son and shaking his head, saying:

"That kid and his long-haired friends are gonna get themselves crucified if they don't settle down!"

It's 6:10 AM now. Good day to you.