Ain't no stopping the Gen X Diamond Jubilee now

Luther Vandross - Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now (Live from Royal Albert Hall)

The starting gun

2025, our year has come, we are the first of the Generation X (Gen X) cohort born from 1965 to 1980 will celebrate our 60^th birthday. What a generation we were and still are, some lost, some already grandparents, if not great-grandparents, others singularly amazing charting paths of adventure living experiences only few could imagine.

My sojourn began as 1965 was closing, earlier in the year, Sir Winston Churchill had passed on, my parents were new arrival students in the United Kingdom, and I was not expected until late March 1966, I guess I was readier to see the world before the conventional schedule.

Through my own eyes

The things I can recall from childhood are from the age of three, a birthday, days out with Joy at the arboretum, and encounters instigated by mum to attend white garment prayer meetings. Superstition has a way of sticking to you regardless of where you end up.

Of the things I do not remember but I learnt of or were told was England won the World Cup in 1966, I always entered a room and addressed everyone, “Ladies & Gentlemen”, some other funny, quirky, and interesting things, my precocity, the penchant for making conversation with strangers, our imagination knew no bounds.

The Nigeria I experienced after the Civil War was prospering, we returned to live in the north, in Kaduna & Jos, environments so familiar to my mother who had her childhood in northern Nigeria too. My schools were an international tapestry of diversity where most of the Black kids were born abroad and those of other races were born in Nigeria. We had the English accents.

Life is a story of stories

Yet, what experiences life has brought us in stories of adversity and triumph, we are at an age that when our parents breached 50, we thought they were over the hill and far away. Now that we are mostly 59 and some have already clocked 60 in the past week, we still hold on to as much of the youthfulness we can retain, and finding out that the world has changed so much as we have changed with the world.

According to the Britannica website, “Gen X is known for being resourceful, independent, and good at maintaining work-life balance. They were the first generation to grow up with personal computers and tend to have liberal views on social issues.” [Britannica: Generation X]

Let the diamond jubilees begin

Much as we would take advantage of the benefits of becoming sixty in our various domains, we are hardly the retiring type. I know, some of us want to return to university to do different courses, we have ideas we still want to implement, it is unlikely we’ll be shuffled off into irrelevance when we have such a resource of knowledge and experience to share, just as we are learning new things.

For our children and grandchildren, you will see a new kid on the block, easy to converse and have a good relationship with, willing to try things that would astound onlookers. That sense of fun, a bit of insouciance with youthful exuberance and the refusal to be too groan (grown) up to participate is something you will see a lot of.

Yes, we will be respectable and wild, snobbish and chilled, confident and ingenue, expert and tyro, growing younger as the numbers suggest we might be older. Thankfully, we are not the Baby Boomers, we are the change makers who have a purpose for living the best we can be, and we know it. You are about to see a Gen X revelation, ain’t no stopping us now.

Welcome to Gen X at 60, it is going to be a long year of diamond jubilee parties.

Thought Picnic: Responsibility is enlivening

Then I saw

I have come to the conclusion or more to the realisation that people require the weight of responsibility to gain focus and find perspective in the things of life.

Without responsibility, the purpose is ill-defined or non-existent and what gathers within the daily existence is lasciviousness, the absence of restraint or moderation and a careering down the road of self-destruction, sometimes at full speed or even at a slow pace, but the direction is evident.

Champions unsung

Some have the capacity to take initiative and assume responsibility, shouldering superhuman sense of duty and command of authority in spheres of influence directly under one’s control and well beyond, drawing in resources that they never knew they had and in perseverance and in fortitude they do not buckle under the pressure.

For each in that situation, their story is probably hardly known or told, they are pillars and columns of support that gives such hope and redemption in our humanity.

Then some

Others, however, for all sorts of reasons cannot assume responsibility, shirk it or have not been put in the circumstances where much is demanded of them, so they have no supply when required. The inability to assume responsibility might be due to incapacity, infirmity or handicap, to them, we owe the generosity of spirit to hold up strong in the face of their struggles, to give support, to give hope, to give purpose and to give love, and if there is much more to give, we do give more.

Those who are able, but shirk it need to be sifted out that they do not consume the finite resources that we strive to provide to those more needful of it. To them, some tough love and talking is required along with making them assume some of their personal responsibilities. To them, one two words are of import. Shape up!

Alive and learning

The others probably need guidance and mentoring, the education and example that can give them the impetus to find purpose and goals, that would inspire them to seek radical change. Those with a teachable spirit ready to learn and improve themselves regardless of where they are in life.

Sometimes, responsibility is maintaining a can-do youthfulness, the ability to reflect, to relearn and to rein in exuberance. Such a scene is what I saw on the Channel 4 television show titled, Old People's Home for 4-Year-Olds. An old people’s home of octogenarians to a centenarian of 102 were visited by 4-year old pre-schoolers over a period of 12 weeks and we watched the transformation of each person in both groups.

Responsibility reviewed

The pre-schoolers making friends of people who could easily be their great-grandparents and by that gaining social skills, building trust and confidence, whilst the usually sedentary and retiring old people were engaging, active, revived and even daring. It was a tear-jerking spectacle of the innate life-giving force of our humanity when a diverse pool of people interacts.

The shared responsibility of caring and befriending each other enforced engagement and more participation, but more tellingly, it showed why inter-generational conversation and activity is beneficial to all concerned. Responsibility, whether explicitly known or innately acted out, is simply bringing something, yourself, your enthusiasm and your willingness to be involved in a community and by that, value is created in people, in place and in participation.

Responsibility is striving to live the best you can be to yourself and to others.

Thought Picnic: Knowing I have a life to live

A change I could not avoid

Five years ago, on the 30^th of April 2012, I finalised the sale of my apartment in Amsterdam and handed the keys over to a young couple hardly 30, who had expectations and a future ahead of them, my sadness at that time, however, did not take away from the very best wishes I had towards them.

My illness and the global credit crisis coincided in one perfect storm that I could no longer afford to keep the place in which I lived and had owned for ten and half years.

Yet, it is not their story that inspires me or spurs me on, the couple I bought my apartment from in 2001 were in their mid to late 70s, they had lived in Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands for 25 years, in the lives of others like them, they should have been coasting to a quiet life of retirement and waiting for God, but they were a different breed.

Youth in the chances you take

She was already 70 and her husband, a few years older when they decided to buy an apartment off the plan in a new development in bustling Amsterdam, they completed the purchase and moved up to Amsterdam for three years where she became the chairperson of the residents and owners’ association of the apartment block that had 69 apartments in all.

After three years of a racy life in Amsterdam, they sold the apartment to me at a healthy profit to themselves and moved to an exclusive hospice-like residence on the banks of the River Rijn in Arnhem, what came across to me in what they did was a youthful exuberance and zest to live life to the full and embark on adventure many younger than them won’t even dare contemplate.

I have had to refresh my mind about this because it matters a lot about how I craft my outlook, future and prospects. Now, I am neither unaware of my vulnerability and mortality, both are ever present because of the afflictions of the past, but they must not define my daily quest in the pursuit of happiness and relevance to self and my close community.

Reality and expectation

Many times, I have thought of my eventual death and in some ways, I wonder why I am at all bothered about where and how I am going to be buried, yet, it is an issue that appears to concern me a bit that it would be prudent to have plans in place to settle that matter and take it completely off my mind. I have a life to live and until I am dead, I really cannot afford to start dying for my death.

Then, there is a cloud that comes around in a strange weather of my existence that inches me towards closing the books and shutting down as if death is imminent, some sort of premonition that needs attention, but I really cannot do anything once I am gone, that is left to those who feel I have been hopefully useful in their own lives, if I predecease them.

The drudgery in the background

I find that I have to boot myself out of that brooding situation and refuse to be overwhelmed by the exigencies of living, the search for fruitful engagement, the paying of the bills, the meeting of all sorts of responsibilities and the hope for a bit extra to have an open hand to others as well as having that much more for the pleasures of life.

I appreciate certain limitations, I enjoy good medical care, my medication is fully subsidised, my consultants have a good history of my situation they can be responsive and promptly attendant to issues than if I were to move elsewhere, that is always part of my consideration for long term plans, but with a bit of planning and consideration, all can be properly conveyed to other hands with no loss of efficiency or expertise.

Living for a better life still

Then again, there are probably some places I should completely cross off my list for emigration and chief amongst those would be the United States of America, it is no place for the vulnerable in whatever way and no place to seek the humanity of consideration from policymakers. Under Donald Trump, those who voted for him in hope of a positive change in their lives predicated on a campaign of fear and loathing would soon realise they came to dinner with the devil without wielding a long spoon.

There are things to attend to, the joy of living, the pursuit of happiness, the search for fulfilment, the attainment of new goals, the exploration of new and interesting places, the meeting of exciting people and when that day comes, a smile of my face having lived a life like no other.

That is what keeps me going, I am grafter in ways I have not entirely agreed I am, but I love the things I do and long may the pleasure continue. By the way, the young couple that bought my apartment in 2012 sold it in late 2015 for a hefty 25% profit, the sheer luck, I still live for a better life.