Blog # 53--Every Generation Re-invents the Same Wheel

Physicists have long known that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This is a natural law that is provable and repeatable. Of course, only a minority of people on Earth know about this law, and even fewer understand it enough to apply it to their own lives.

We brag about how much progress we’ve made over the years, but every action we take has a counterpoint which guarantees a continuing balance within Nature. Over a lifetime, we all have plenty of opportunities to see this law in action, but we often prefer to make exceptions and deny the law’s existence if we don’t like the outcomes.

By the time we are elderly, many of us have begun to understand life’s up-and-down cycles. Of course, by then it is often too late to help younger generations learn these lessons, especially in cultures where the elderly are discarded like yesterday’s news.

In the United States and probably many countries, children are often spoiled and allowed to remain in fixed child ego states throughout their early lives. When they reach puberty, raging sexual hormones push both males and females into more extreme perspectives as they prepare for reproduction. It makes many of these young adults into intractable know-it-alls who try to separate themselves from the rest of humanity.

Of course, advertisers take advantage of this by appealing to the selfish ego to sell all types of products to make us better looking, healthier and sexier. They use our sexual cravings and arrogance to lure us into many other products we may never need. It is extremely easy to fool those between the ages of puberty and menopause.

This volatile mix of childishness, selfishness and arrogance causes each generation to believe it is superior to previous generations. This in turn encourages them to throw out older ideas and products that have been successful under the assumption that previous generations had to be wrong about everything. After all, since they are right, everyone else must be wrong.

What young adults don’t realize is that their attempts to create their own language, music, clothing styles and the like produce only variations on previous themes. I remember hearing a twenty-something male brag about how modern clothing trends were special and different than anything that came before. Reminding him how similar those styles were to ones popular a number of years ago had no value whatsoever. He was spending money he didn’t have buying a whole new wardrobe every year or two to copy the new styles and seem hip, and he couldn’t see how corporations were taking advantage of his narrow focus.

Of course, physical laws are immaterial to some people of all ages, so we can’t single out young adults. They are simply the most obvious examples. Because we believe progress is possible, our egos assume newer is better than older. This isn’t always the case. For instance, pharmaceutical companies would love to scare people out of using generic aspirin so they can sell more expensive synthetic substitutes that lack the overall benefits of aspirin. They can’t profit from aspirin because they don’t own the rights to it, so they convince the public their products are better.

As another example, I used a number of musical references in my book “It’s a Secret, So Pass It On: a Toolbox For Life.” Lyrics from music masters such as Paul Simon, Supertramp and Jethro Tull have inspired me over the years and provide credibility for the conclusions shared in the book. But most young people ignore the older musicians, and modern music moguls want to sell large quantities of music that follow basic sellable formulas. Inspiration is limited by visions of dollar signs.

Some new music is outstanding and shares important truths. But some older music does as well. The same is true for all aspects of life. We are wise to look for quality in everything we do, regardless of when it was created. If we throw away the good from the past, we may end up with its opposite in the present. We must then re-invent the wheel just to get back to where we were before.

http://dreamtime3.wix.com/jacktuttlebook

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