The fundamental goal in my life is live “Huxtable”. I know you all remember the Cosby Show… well it was shows like that and A Different World that really helped solidify a generation of young black people and give them weekly examples of living a good life. When I say I wanna live “Huxtable” it is in reference to living a just an good life enjoying the fruits of the rewards that come from honest living and respect for others and being tuned into the comedy of it all. Living “Huxtable” has become a term I use that serves as a pithy reminder of the virtues I want to embody as I live my life.
So, I am not old, but I am old enough to know and do better. When I look at the younger folks out there… I really wonder what in the current zeitgeist do they have to anchor themselves in the way that the 80’s anchored me. It is pretty clear to me that the culture in the modern techno world has become splintered. As there are more outlets and venues there are more things to hold our attention there seems to be fewer things that bind us. For example, when I was younger, there were only 3 networks on television and everyone watched pretty much the same shows, c’mon, who didn’t watch the A-Team! There was Saturday morning cartoons (you can’t tell me you didn’t watch the Smurfs!) and other shared experiences that as a group bind us. Many of my good friends in college that came from all over the country did exactly the same stuff I did as a kid and watched and listened to the same things that I listened to and it immediately gives us a connection. In the today’s world, I wonder what people find to bind themselves? I am of the opinion that we are niching ourselves out of any identity at all. Things just seemed a bit more substantive when I was younger. Cool people were really cool, and you couldn’t buy cool on a rack. I do recognize that I can’t really tell if the world was better because I saw it through younger more naive eyes or if our current state is imperically worse. I just get a strange feeling in my stomach when I observe how people now-a-days don’t really venture out and spontaneously make new friends, because they bring their friends with them wherever they go by way of cell phones. I dunno… I’ll leave it for your to muse on. I just think we are niching ourselves into the crapper (IMHO).
