The Creation Myth
These days, I’d never quote a Woody Allen joke from his standup days, but if I did, it would be this one: “My father worked for the same firm for twelve years. They fired him. They replaced him with a tiny gadget – this big – that does everything my father does, only it does it much better. The depressing thing is, my mother ran out and bought one.” For Gen X, this joke hits hard. But it doesn’t quite get how bad some folks in creative fields feel. It’s not just that they’ve been fired and replaced by technology. They were the generation that created the technologies that threaten their obsolescence. Steven Kurtz in the NYT (Gift Article): “It’s the end of work as we knew it … and I feel… powerless to fight the technology that we pioneered … nostalgic for a world that moved on without us … after decades of paying our dues … for a payday that never came … so yeah, not exactly fine.” The Gen X Career Meltdown. “Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It’s as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in. The market value of their skills plummeted.” (And, of course, the pace of plummeting has reached escape velocity with the rise of AI. This is part of the reason why the only assistant I use is Siri. That way I still feel superior to the technology.)
+ Here at NextDraft HQ (my bed, next to my beagles), I still roll my own blunt takes on the day’s news. And my longtime designer/friend Bryan Bell is still creating our T-shirts with a human touch. Our latest excellent offering, Fact Around and Find Out, is available as a shirt, hoodie, or pullover sweatshirt, and even a coffee tumbler. This and more is available in the NextDraft store.
+ I don’t make any profit off the NextDraft store (in keeping with my newsletter writing revenue model). But for today, for every item you purchase, I will personally donate $25 to Protect Democracy, “a cross-ideological nonprofit group dedicated to defeating the authoritarian threat, building more resilient democratic institutions, and protecting our freedom and liberal democracy.” That makes this a good time for you to learn more about them. After you’ve scored some new gear…
