The Baby Boomers' Dream

The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy. - Oscar Wilde

I was dreaming of the past
And my heart was beating fast
I began to lose control - from John Lennon, "Jealous Guy"

When was typing in the title of this post, I hesitated - on where to put the apostrophe. Was I about to write about MY dream - the "Baby Boomer's Dream", or of our collective "Baby Boomer's Dream"? I decided on the latter.

Lately I've been fixated on something that's been increasingly commented on explored and dissected in the American press. It has taken many forms but is best summed up with the rhetorical question, "What has happened to the 'American Dream'?"

Now I really can't remember, but I suspect there's an Australian equivalent of the "American Dream", and that it means more or less the same thing. The idea that for all citizens of America (or Australia), it is possible to own a house, have steady job that pays enough to raise a family of 1.2 kids, and to retire gracefully.

The reason the question is being asked, in America at least, is that along with the recession-depression, have come foreclosures, lay-offs and a reduction in publicly-funded vital services such as education and commuter transport. But was it ever just "a dream" or was it what could be reasonably expected in reality. My guess is that for the bulk of Americans it has always been a dream, and that the reason that journos are decrying the "loss" of the dream, is that the gap between the dreamers and the dreamed is becoming larger, and that they, themselves, are becoming dreamless. And in any case, a dream is just that; a dream.

Me, in Iran, 35PF (Pre FaceBook)

But I'm not so interested in the American or the Australian "dream". I AM interested in the baby-boomers' dream. And more so lately as I find more and more of my old peripheral friends popping up on FaceBook. The "lefties" of Sydney and Melbourne. Still going strong. Posting YouTube videos of Jethro Tull and Sonny and Cher songs of the 1970s.

Enabled by Mark Zuckerberg, we are all there, on FaceBook, 'liking' each others' music clips that are all pre-circa-1972. The "summer of love" may be almost 50 years away but we are still around.

We have survived. I'm always amazed when I check an old friend's FaceBook friends. There's invariably someone I knew a hundred years ago. I click the "ask xxx to be your friend" link and to my amazement they always accept my cyber offer. Do they remember me, or do they just look at my profile pic and gauge my age, and being people who were brought up in the fifties and sixties to be polite, accept?

Dylan, aka Robert Allen Zimmerman, has been taken over in interest and in "followers" by Mark Zuckerberg. Ever adaptable, we boomers have overcome! No longer rebels or dreamers, today's young have chosen to conduct their personal and political life in cyberspace. And we have joined them.

I remember marching down St Kilda Road in Melbourne in 1969, protesting against the war in Vietnam. We actually had to leave our houses to do this. Now people can Tweet and FaceBook from the comfort of their own bedrooms.

And I have to hand it to my fellow baby-boomers, we have taken to the new media, and have signed up with Twitter and Facebook in droves.

The American and Australian dreams are still - dreams. The Vietnam war has been replaced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public health, public schools and public transport are still being pummeled into non-existance by conservative governments.

Like Cool Hand Luke, we shall not be moved.

We shall overcome.

But will we?