Nate

Chapter 4: Nate am I

My name is Nathan. Most people, including my family, whom I hardly ever
see anymore, call me Nate. It's no surprise that I've let family ties
drift over the years. Oh! I pointed an accusatory finger in their
general direction once or twice and, on occasion, manufactured rather
plausible arguments to support my misaligned angst, but in the end,
there really is no blame to shove around.
My Dad's a bit of a curmudgeon. Old world views&;#8230;recycled
Momisms&;#8230;security over sanity. His character is a bland
reflection of the pragmatism that took over the western world after the
Second World War. To be fair, I'm sure a person's motivations are bound
to be different when three square meals a day is a laughable
suggestion. If you were fortunate enough to receive a decent education
before the entire system went to shit, you can probably figure out that
my father's a boomer. Eighty-hour workweeks brought the boomers
prosperity, bloated federal coffers, ill-conceived social programs, and
left very little time for introspection or humor.

Of course, I am speaking generally. I certainly wouldn't commit to the
accuracy of my views. Nay Sayers and Know-it-alls abound and lurk the
streets like muggers waiting to stick an exception in your face and
stroll away with your dignity. These days, it is very dangerous to hold
to anything too firmly. This is the age of misinformation. We are
afforded individual rights and freedoms under law, only we can't say
shit for fear that we'll hurt someone's feelings and end up in court
dockets. Yet, everyone has an opinion which, through some diluted
logic, we are forced to acknowledge as being equally valid as our own.
And, where once men bared the tree of knowledge in search of truth, we
planted an orchard. Everyone clamors around busily stirring up dust so
thick we can't see anymore. Every new idea lobs like a cannonball,
barreling down around us in virtual showers. They pit the ground with
potholes, every one more vacuous than the last, and leave us without a
place to stand. We are drifters&;#8230;transients.

I am a drifter, and as such, I am my father's shame. He can't reconcile
with the fact that this uprooted ness is a condition that afflicts most
of my generation rather than just me. He associates my detachment and
distractedness with a lack of fortitude, a laziness, which he
invariably attributes to a lax upbringing. No sense trying to explain a
lifetime spent witnessing men spent on production and linear thinking
only to realize their values were misplaced. Men peering over and
around their mess of shiny acquisitions at the faces of their grown
sons and unable to conjure memories of them as children.

We rarely talk anymore. We hardly ever did. He has no patience for
dialectics on corporate downsizing or social and religious
fragmentation. There is no way to explain to him that marriage and
family have become a risky proposition at best. That stability and
security are not feasible alternatives anymore. That God really is
dead. That somewhere along the line, as his generation forged ahead,
certain very important values were cast off as ballast, dropped into
the seas or rolled under dense thickets, and forgotten. That our
generation longs for these castaways without a clear and definite
notion of what they are.