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Originally Posted by mycroft
As a matter of fact, I'm rather scared of the prospect that we are a generation of under-acheivers or something. Could just be the age, though.
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I was actually thinking about this the other day! Someone was commenting on the world (perhaps US culture specifically, not sure) and they suggested that the world is currently a place where "mediocrity reigns supreme."
I've done a lot of thinking about it, and, as cynical as I can get, I don't believe it.
True, a lot of people in our generation (What is it? Gen X? Y? Or are these US-only terms?) seem to be excelling at mediocrity, but I don't think it is exactly what we're striving for. I see almost everyone at my age WANTING to excel at something, anything, that often all that is left is a bunch of unfinished projects.
I think the "solution" (if there even is one) is just to buckle down and focus on one thing. Do it well. I personally find that extraordinarily difficult. If you read my diatribe above, I'm all big on writing, English, and drama, but right now I'm immeasurably fascinated with stop motion animation. I'm about 50% complete with the pre-production process of a 2-3 minute short film, which will take about 2 months to complete. My friends and family are is disbelief that I've even gotten as far as I have, as I tend to leave my hopeful projects unfinished. I've resolved to see this one thing right now through until the end, no matter what.
Also, for redhottray, one thing you might want to consider is getting some more world/life experience before settling down to put it on paper. The clichéed quote "Write what you know" is entirely overused, but that doesn't make it wrong. I found that as a younger teenager I was writing consistently about teen agnst, and eventually it just became trite for me to do. Since I'm still "connected" to that life, I figure I need a little more time before I can move on to write about new things.
Oh, blast it!! I know I've generalized all too much, but I really believe that we aren't a generation of anything.... at least not yet. We're just in a transition period between learning, doing, and living, that is rather uncomfortable to deal with.
There's my dime-store wisdom for you. Probably only worth a penny :-)
