Each generational type (there are four) has a date with destiny that is its own, and for which it is uniquely and perfectly formed. Each generation also goes through the four phases of life (childhood, young adulthood, midlife and elderhood) in which they both see the outer world from their distinct perspective and are seen by the outer world (the other generations) in a specific way.
Here’s a look at the concept of being “The One” as it relates to the four generational types, starting with the Boomers, who are born 1943-1960 (yes, those years track better to the Boomer experience).
Boomers, the Prophet generation type
Boomers’ Childhood
As children, Boomers are The One for whom all is built. The One who represents the hope of an even-brighter tomorrow. The One who will inherit, in due time, the keys to the kingdom (being busily built in their childhood years).
The Boomer/Prophet always experiences childhood during the post-crisis, time-to-build-a-new-golden-age era. The Hero/GI/Greatest generation that most forms them (the same type as today’s Millennials) can finally build–collectively, confidently, collegially and cheerfully–upon the ashes of the crisis just past. And do.
Boomers as they Come of Age
As this generation-type transitions out of childhood (late teens) and into young adulthood (early 20s), in that bridge time they are The One who calls out the kingdom on its failings. The One who rejects utterly, angrily and noisily all that has been designed, made, built and erected “for them,” hating (hating, hating, hating!) the progress-for-Progress’s-sake nature of their parents’ generation. Structure but no soul. Progress but no meaning. More, more and more without purpose and morals. No, no and no! They won’t have it.
In so doing, they radicalize the national conversation around values, redirect cultural-values to their thinking and ensure that their parent-generation knows they want no part of the golden-age world they made for them (though they certainly and absolutely benefit from all the goodness and functioning in that world and don’t seem to calculate that in much in their decrying of all that functions well, is new and gleaming and is meant to be the foundation for greatness yet ahead).
Boomers’ Young Adulthood Years
After a fiery coming-of-age period (particularly for the first of this generation) and eruption in social norms (lasting about seven years), the Boomer-type turns away from the outer world and inward toward self. Self-actualization, self-knowing, self-truth. Self, self, self. (A wee bit narcissistic, too.) They continue to reject their parents’ world, continue to find their inner world both fascinating and the reservoir of truth as continue to seek, seek, seek perfection: perfection in work, perfection in play, perfection in everything. They can’t just play or have fun; they have to work at everything, to push to the possible limits of perfection and to express–as they see it–the moral perfection of their inner being in the outer world.
Perfection is godliness to them. And really annoying to everyone else, especially the Xer-type that comes after them and is junior in the workplace and society to them and often having to work with and for them.
They know — each every one of them — that they hold within them Ultimate Truth and that their internal moral compass is unflagging and ever-trustworthy. Of this they have little doubt. They are — each and every one of them — The One who knows Truth–the true truth, the ultimate truth, for it comes from within them and wells forth. They don’t need, want or care much about the outer world in these years; they don’t need society and they certainly don’t want to be bothered with The Ways of Man. Inward, self, perfection. Morals, values, meaning. These are their drivers. (Oh, and a bit of greed peppered with a whole lot of pessimism.)
This Boomer-Prophet type bifurcates along values at this time. They split. Half of them go rural-conservative-red-state and the other half go urban-liberal-blue-state. This near 50-50 split happens during every great-awakening era, like clockwork, and sets up, in part, the coming crisis era.
Boomers in Midlife
Upon moving into midlife (around age 44-65), the Boomer-type starts to realize they can have more impact on the world by moving out of their self-immersion and into The World. As all generations in midlife begin to experience, with each passing year, more and more of their generational peers are in positions of management, with opportunities to direct people, resources and activities. It’s a time of power.
They begin to see that this Outer World thing could be quite useful in creating a more perfect world (per their vision, of course), and thus begin to use their positions (in business, government, education, law, media … wherever they are) to shoehorn in their values into values-based legislation, morality (as they see it) in education, morality and values in labeling music and TV as moral (or not), for children and on and on and on and on. Want to take a guess when the home-school movement really started to take off? Yeah … it was, in large measure, an attempt by Boomer parents to control the values to which their children were being exposed.
For, yes, they are very much The One(s) — the only Ones — who can do this thing: who can reshape society to align with morals and values. They believe, with every cell in their bodies, that if the moral direction of something is right, if the values are aligned, if the vision is spoken of, then all the pieces, bits and whatever else it is that makes society work will “magically” happen (read: young GenXers figure out how to make their visions real).
The Boomer-type in midlife sees their rising leadership roles less as an opportunity to build, make, design and improve society and more as an opportunity to mold, form and protect (their) children while also judging, punishing and calling-bad their junior generation (the Gen X type). Can you say, “Mega, massive huge prison-population jumps during this time” with me? Yes, let’s say that together.
If you look at the data of who felt the full force of the Judge-Punish-Incarceration Craze while Boomers were in midlife, you’ll see the years: it’s Xers (deemed in large measure as morally deficient by many a Boomer), born 1961-1981 who took the brunt of that change.
Boomers in Elderhood
For as much as this generation-type likes to ping back to its fiery, give-it-to-The-Man, coming-of-age and rising young-adulthood years, it’s actually in elderhood (about 66-87 years of age) where this generation shines and has lasting, historically-remembered impact on the nation.
For indeed, when the nation hits The Big One — the big crisis, the ultimate crisis, the will-the-nation-survive? crisis — they are the generation that produces The One, the Gray Champion as he (or she) is often called. That Gray Champion, that One, who (eventually, though on time) stands above the fray, moves beyond the nation’s 50-50 bifurcation and says, “This way! We will go here. We will do this (in response to the nation-threatening event that always culminates in the latter third of a nation’s era of “winter” and the dark times).
In so doing — in producing this Gray Champion The One — other Boomers (most, not all) let go of the values split, find some eventual resolution in a post-Crisis minor compromise (there will be an internal loser) and shift the nation’s attention and energy away from the bifurcation and toward survival. They call for a holy war.
In so doing, the GenX-Nomad midlife leader and natural-born general steps into its ultimate role as being the one to figure out how to make the The Gray Champion Boomer vision happen amidst terrible conditions, no-win situations and compromised resources; the upbeat, collective Millennial-Hero young adults are called forth to a noble war; the innocent, helpful, empathetic child Artist-type (not named yet, though born in 2005 plus about 22 years) stays quiet and out of the way of busy adults while also helping out in small ways; and the nation makes it through the crisis, either victoriously or not, but in either case, they come through the crisis and begin to move onto the next chapter, the next era and the natural season that comes after winter: spring, which is the season, the era, the time and the conditions which will produce the next-Boomer-like generation of children.
