\u201cContentment\u201d is a word you don\u2019t hear very often anymore. It\u2019s such a passive word. These days we\u2019re all about superlatives. You can\u2019t even buy a small Coke. You have to choose from \u201clarge,\u201d \u201cextra large,\u201d \u201cbig gulp\u201d and \u201cbelly buster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don’t get me started on Starbucks.<\/p>\n
There are no movie and singing stars anymore. None. Now all actors and singers are \u201cSUPERstars!\u201d The real superstars are \u201cMEGAstars!\u201d (In a perverse, word nerd way I\u2019m kind of looking forward to seeing where the publicity flaks take us from here.)<\/p>\n
How many emails do you get in which people use so many exclamation points they must have bought them at Costco?<\/p>\n
Calm words are boring, I guess. When I ask people how they are nobody just says \u201cfine.\u201d Everybody is \u201cexcellent,\u201d and \u201cawesome!\u201d If you tell somebody you\u2019re \u201cfine\u201d these days they think you\u2019re either deeply depressed or too busy to be bothered. \u201cFine\u201d has become, in effect, a benign way of dismissing people.<\/p>\n
I guess there\u2019s something pathetic about plain old contentment that just reeks of giving up and settling for less.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s going on here? Why are we all driving for higher levels of okay?<\/strong> Remember when being okay was a good thing? Now it makes you suspect. If you tell somebody you\u2019re \u201cokay\u201d they think you\u2019re brooding or pouting or about to launch into some self-serving tirade. \u201cNo, really, I\u2019m okay!\u201d When you put an exclamation point on it like that it looks like you\u2019re covering something up or being super defensive. Not just defensive, see, SUPER defensive!!! Or, maybe you scare people by being calm. Maybe they suspect you\u2019re going to be the next guy in the news who walked into his former office and shot up the place.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a nice guy. Always quiet; kept to himself. Said he was \u2018fine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Something is driving us these days and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just the cultural evolution of semantics. I think, for some reason, a lot of us are screaming for attention.<\/p>\n And I wouldn\u2019t mention it, of course, unless I had a theory. Here it is:<\/p>\n We baby boomers have been screwing around with America\u2019s social foundation since the sixties<\/strong> when some of us suddenly decided we had no further need for our parents, teachers and other authority figures.<\/p>\n This was evolving when I was still in high school. We still had a dress code and we still addressed teachers as Mr. This and Mrs. That. But just a few years later there was a brief but widespread attempt to equalize the social standing between students and teachers when students began addressing teachers by their first names. Teachers at the time, many of them children of the sixties, nearly unanimously and warmly accepted this practice as enlightened and hip. I don\u2019t know for sure why this cultural experiment didn\u2019t jell but I suspect it caused a structural breakdown that even those young boomer teachers who opposed the rule of authority had to admit caused some real disruption in classrooms. When “Mr. Farber” confiscated your hash pipe and sent you to the office there were consequences. If “Phil” tried do do that, you probably laughed and Phil smiled, too. In any case, it didn\u2019t last very long but I do see a social pattern that can be traced back to that era.<\/p>\n Young people these days almost never say, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome.\u201d Instead they say, \u201cNo problem,\u201d which is hardly the same thing. \u201cThank you\u201d and \u201cyou\u2019re welcome\u201d are ancient pleasantries, expressions of respect. But now it\u2019s gotten to the point I don\u2019t even want to thank anybody because I dread the kickback I know I\u2019m about to receive. When I thank a waiter for bringing my meal he says, \u201cNo problem\u201d and honestly, I feel a little insulted or, at least, brushed aside. I want to respond, \u201cI\u2019m greatly relieved that my presence, requiring you to perform a small part of your job, isn\u2019t creating a problem<\/em><\/strong> for you,\u201d but I don\u2019t. I know he wasn\u2019t trying to insult me but by not acknowledging my respectful gratitude with an equally personal and gracious, “You’re welcome,” he is unconsciously diverting attention from me, his customer, to himself. Not only does it abruptly terminate the intended exchange of pleasantries, it draws a faint line between us. In effect the waiter is saying to me, \u201cYou\u2019re doing your thing (ordering a meal) and I\u2019m doing mine (bringing it.)\u201d In an unconscious effort to equalize the social standing between us the waiter is rejecting the relationship that naturally exists.<\/p>\n Being a waiter isn\u2019t demeaning and neither is being polite. We are all subordinate to others at times in various circumstances and that\u2019s a good thing, I think. It keeps us humble and respectful of others. But when we blur the distinction between customer and waiter we rob ourselves of an opportunity to experience a supporting role in society. At other times, in different circumstances, the waiter is a customer, too.<\/p>\n Carolann thinks I\u2019m a nutball<\/strong> when I start prattling on about this stuff. She says I\u2019m too picky about words and she does have a point because I take people far more literally than they generally intend. The thing is, when I don\u2019t I’m confused. The subtleties and shadings of implications in our language are powerful and I hate being forced to go through life unclear about everything everybody says. I find myself constantly guessing what people mean as opposed to what they say. I\u2019m never sure what to believe and isn\u2019t that true to some extent for all of us these days?<\/p>\n When was the last time you fully believed or understood something you read in a newspaper or saw on TV? It\u2019s popular these days to accuse the mass media of having a political agenda that slants the information they provide us. I hate political bickering and won\u2019t go down that road just now but I do think what we\u2019re seeing, hearing and reading today are more shouts for attention, the clamoring of an ever more desperate generation of narcissists growing old without contentment.<\/p>\n