Generational Labels
It is not enough that we call the young snowflakes—fragile, transient, easily crushed. We also carve society into blocks of “Boomers,” “Gen X,” “Millennials,” “Gen Z,” as though every human life could be filed by decade like invoices in a cabinet. It is lazy taxonomy masquerading as sociology.
These labels tell us nothing of value. “Boomer” says nothing about the character of a person born in 1960 who spent their life resisting conformity. “Millennial” does not capture a mother of three working two jobs. The language flattens difference until all you see is caricature.
Even “senior” has become a joke, emptied of respect, while “middle age” stretches to absurdity—sixty now framed as halfway, as if we are all destined for 120.
If we must classify, why not by qualities that matter: generosity, curiosity, courage, creativity? But of course such non-hierarchical measures do not suit the bureaucratic mind. Systems prefer crude categories because they are easy to count, even if they misdescribe the world.
I would sooner be a snowflake—unique, fleeting, unpredictable—than a “Boomer,” a cardboard label pasted over a living person. The only real generation is the one alive now, in its full, unclassifiable variety.
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