Eulogy for a Generation of Fools
by
Larry Bryan
For two decades we have been on this earth
Twenty years spent earnestly attempting to
learn,
observe,
understand.
Parents, whose job it is to assist us
in this quest, taught us nothing.
They are too young to understand.
Don't allow them to be with you,
talk with you,
hear you,
interfere with your superior thoughts.
Push them away.
Don't take advantage of the years
In which they yearn for your words.
Push them away.
"What are you talking about Daddy?"
"You're too young to understand,
Go on and play."
"What is that Mommy?"
"Don't look at that,
it will hurt you."
Just say no...
to drugs
to music
to thought
to expression
to interaction
to understanding
to life.
Damn you all.
Damn you for your refusal to teach
to accept
to welcome our thoughts.
Damn you for your ignorance.
We are you now,
And instead of teaching us
You have continually pushed us away.
Now, when we are finally adults,
You see us as slackers,
dreamers,
useless factors of society.
You now discard us because
We choose not to learn from you.
For two decades we begged you to teach us,
But you sent us to school.
You cared so little about our future,
That you let us play instead of
Letting us hear your
thoughts,
pleasures,
dreams,
mistakes.
You raised us to believe
Not in ourselves,
Not in our abilities,
But in an unattainable wisdom
That would come with age.
A sudden jolt in which we would
No longer have to go and play.
And now that we are adults,
We see that there is no jolt.
There is no great burst of energy,
No wave of knowledge which comes
Upon a person after they have lived
For twenty years,
Forty years,
Eighty years.
In your inability to accept
Your own lack of knowledge,
You left us to learn from each other
To develop our own thoughts,
To express our dreams and pleasures
To one another.
And instead of hearing
Those thoughts, dreams, and pleasures,
You discarded them as the fancies of youth.
Now we are adults.
Those fancies of youth are now
The motivation of a generation.
You can no longer stop us.
We will not be pushed away.
We will not be told to say no.
For twenty years you had the chance
To ingrain your beliefs in us.
But you felt we were not worthy,
able,
ready to understand your thoughts.
It is your loss only.
For soon you will be gone.
And it will be we who rule the world.
It will be our thoughts,
Our dreams,
Our mistakes,
Which send this country forward.
And through two decades,
Of forced ignorance
We have learned one thing,
If nothing else,
From you.
We have learned
Not to stifle the thoughts
Of the younger generations,
For there will be a day on which
We will depend on them
For our very lives.
If we choose to push them away,
Then they will be gone.
If we embrace them,
Their ideas,
Their beliefs,
Their desires,
Then they will become
A part of us,
And we of them.
Therefore allowing us to
Live Forever.
You chose not to embrace us.
You chose not to listen,
To hear,
To try to understand what
We were saying.
The day will come
When we will put you
Into the ground.
And although your names
Will carry with us.
Your thoughts will be buried
With you
Do not criticize us for
Our failure to listen to you.
You never taught us to.
It is coming upon our time to touch,
To form,
To set the path for the future,
We will not push our children
Away.
We will not make them feel
As if they are inferior because
They were unfortunate enough
To be born after us.
We will take them in,
We will embrace them,
And our thoughts and dreams will
Live along with theirs.
And all this because we will
Choose
To give them but one instruction.
Just say know.
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