Y60 Preface

      Each of us embraces a vortex of energy manifested from the past, present, and future. Some believe that time moves their soul through different dimensions of earthly passage, as stage for incarnation and karmic purpose. Others believe we are simply here consequent to our parents’ decision to have a child…by choice or otherwise.

      Déjà vu, dreams, premonitions, clairvoyance, extraordinary happenings, alien species, imagination, mental disorder, and psychic extensions suggest alternate levels of our coexistence. They also challenge us away from expected perceptions and logistical reasoning. Conversely: adversity, love, greed, regret, jealousy, glee, compassion, and desire meld us within realms of earthly cohabitation. 

     There are many sides to our existential travel through time and destiny’s superposition. Whether you are a psychic, single parent, child, wretched individual, challenged, enlightened, or with roots from another planet, your life’s visions will be embodied in soul, or veiled as such by imbalanced perception. 

      How do I know this to be true? Perhaps I don’t; many true things are not soundly known by an individual, though this does not necessarily render them as faux. In fact, knowing truth… quintessence…is perhaps an adulteration. Truth is an offering of unwavering nature, but its interpretation can be indistinct. 

      For me, life’s essence is understood by its outcomes: happy, sad, substantive, surreal, known, unknown, yin and yang, all from traversing realisms and interpretations that have manifested these states from within. Such experiences, and amalgamation with others, have shaped my life’s multifarious happenings through destiny’s passage.

      One cannot relish life’s intensity without opening their heart intently. Love without experiencing hate or anger is pure, but one-dimensional. Ethics without violation are protected by purity, but not empathy. Lightheartedness cohabitates with depression, as either will be otherwise empty. Yin and yang flow as proportioned by one’s fate and volition to grow.  There in lies appreciation of life’s magnificent gifts, merged between euphoria and abjection—as is nature’s way.

      Post World War II (WWII), the “Baby Boomer” explosion produced nearly 77 million newborns in the US, comprising nearly 40 percent of the country’s population. This not only created a growing demand for consumer goods and economic gain, but it ultimately infused societal changes of vast proportion.

      New families migrated from cities to the suburbs, also enabled by post-WWII’s “G.I. Bill. A new economy saw increases in wages, thriving businesses, and roots of an electronic generation, e.g., television and transistor radio. Further, the ideology of a husband being the sole provider for a household, traditional role of housewives as child bearers and domestic caretakers, and the inherited pressures of PTSD, alcoholism, corporal punishment and family status, ultimately evolved a sizable boomer counterculture that changed civil history like never before.

      Generation X embodies Americans born between 1965 and 1984. Inheriting some of the social values of preceding boomers, Gen X also encountered the challenges of Century 21’s dot.com bust and its successive financial crisis/Great Recession. They invoked a translucent identity to their over-worked parents, many divorced, and correspondingly less overall opportunity. Gen X propelled “extreme sports” and furthered an evolving acceptance of cultural change regarding sexuality and ethnicity.

      Today’s Generation X totals around 50 million persons, while Baby Boomers and Millennials each total around 75 million.
      Generation Millennial began after the mid 1990s. This new group learned to break things and rebuild them, e.g., computer systems. They were born into the cyber era and became embodied in today’s “Internet of Things,” creating a formidable dependency on “touchscreen” communication. Millennials have endured compromised economic opportunity compared to their parents' and grandparents,’ due to Century 21’s steep rise in education, healthcare, and housing costs. Millennials put less emphasis on former standards of success and social stature, and lean more toward embracing social sensitivity and cyber-based incarnations.

     While the opportunistic boomer generation, who took full advantage of the provisions of their time, are by some sources blamed for numerous ill-effects found in today’s society (high health care costs, surge in real estate value, job market adulteration by working in senior years, and strain on the Social Security system), it is my belief that it was indeed the boomers who built and funded these entities, and consequently made them thrive.

      For decades, the boomer generation contributed to Social Security (a trust fund that really isn’t one, vastly violated by government. They created high technology’s explosion and countless flourishing businesses. They also fought for civil rights and women’s equality. Add in a wealth of progressive change in music, culture, and outreach for the less fortunate.

      It is the deception of government and its money-hungry policies, alongside goliath financial entities (Wall Street, chemical, pharmaceutical, university, extractive (e.g., oil), Federal Reserve, etc.), which have enabled this country to be at near poverty for 80% of its people, not the innovators (boomers) who enabled society to flourish. Add in the new millennium’s pervasive insourcing of foreign labor at reduced wages, also creating job displacement; outsourcing of millions of jobs and formidable industries; universities favoring foreign students at highest tuitions, hence elevated for others; and developers selling to foreign cash investors (e.g., real estate). The above factors, and others, are the proven causes for today’s oppressive times. I was inspired to write a chapter regarding this compelling fallout during Y60.

      Switching gears, in 2002, television aired a novel show, “American Idol,” where 178 amazing vocal finalists spawned over 14 seasons to 2015.  Before Idol, most of this top talent performed in small venues, such as sporting events, talent shows, and bands. After their success on TV, these singers’ careers catapulted. The show tipped the notoriety scale like never before, giving anyone an opportunity to transcend his or her  “apprenticeship” singing to stardom.

      I mention this show because it illustrates that an individual does not necessarily have to be a well-known singer, or anyone renowned, for which others can gain inspiration. Idol proved this in its novel way. Likewise, there are thousands of ordinary persons, who on scale have engaged in similar on goings as Abe Lincoln,, Rosa Parks, Dr. Christine Darden, Alison Hargreaves, and other legendary figures, but their life stories are not made eminent. Add to this, countless others who also have inspiring memoirs to share.

      Such accounts could be insightfully written, but it is a challenging task endeavored by few. Paralleling the vision of American Idol creator, Simon Fuller, I, an ordinary person, have a remarkable story to share. And though history repeats itself, the past 60 years have been so evolved that they may have marked the end of an otherwise consistent societal fabric over the past two millenniums!

      Maybe Y60 will rank in the top 15 of this year’s life memoirs; I guess we’d need a “Life Idol” program for that.  Stardom or not, following is a true account of my passage through a fascinating era us baby boomers lived, up to today’s litigious cyber world. It is written through the eyes of the boy and acuity of the man, beginning in pre-Silicon Valley California’s earliest suburbs. The book is a hybrid writing, which ties in historical happenings, widespread acts of financial and governmental deceit, plus novel approaches to help manage some of today’s popular life challenges.

      Our past six decades have formed a unique conduit that has united us baby boomers (and Generation X) from many fronts. I am grateful that providence has spun me to love and appreciate this iconic period, despite hardship and pain. As you read, my account will also be a reflection of you, transpired through my episodic life, from pedestrian happenings to extraordinary events of eccentric acuity. It is naked, provoking, moving, and humorous, amid many hues of emotion.

      This book was thrilling to write, though chapters involving my brother and family’s perplexity were difficult to bare, particularly with repeated editing. It took a lot of my usual intense workouts and unique connection to these loved ones to cope with this. The civil rights era and history’s brave struggle for women’s equality were also compelling to research and relive.

      In all, Y60 was not written for the usual self-motives of healing from life’s adversity, working through midlife change, and other such evolutions. I had already embraced destiny’s 52 cards once my brain synapses established clarity around age 50. Instead, the book enabled me to relive life with profound detail, piercing memories, much lightheartedness, and vast appreciation. Who gets such an opportunity…few…I am grateful.

      Further, it was fascinating that key events, such as corruption in our government, Wall Street, and judicial system, and oppositely, the loss of my family members, occurred in real time during my writing. This added significant acuity and challenge. Other life events literally felt like going back in a time machine. 

       In summary, I believe nature’s path is innately deep-rooted, as are experiences in spirit and fateful wisdom. Could such truths serve as a foundation for all aspects of life? And if so, how can one balance the dark and light sides of their inimitable existence? The outcomes of these and other discernments are explored, as my story unfolds through Y60.

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