Obsolete.

I was at a conference recently, where I got to hear a young woman (around my age) talk about generational "differences," and how older folks could entice young people and recent college graduates to come to work for them. She was discussing how Gen Y (or Gen i, or Gen Z, or "Millennials") prefer a flexible schedule in the workplace, and that if current CEOs want to recruit this younger generation, they'll have to adapt. Or as she stated in her talk, "You risk losing access to a big pool of talent." Immediately, an older gentleman fired back, "So what? If I say the workday starts at 8:00, you should be in your chair at 8:00I I mean, even banks open at 8:30am - and that's just not going to change!" In one fell swoop, he revealed his generational achilles' heel. However, I think generational comparisons are utterly useless. Why? As the DJ says, "What we're gonna do right here is go back..."

The letterpress, beginning with Gutenberg in the 15th century, was a force to be reckoned with. Books, periodicals, magazines, letters and so forth could be duplicated and distributed in rapid succession. Prior to that, books were painstakingly printed by hand, page after page. Information was now and forever going to be in the hands of the people. The letterpress didn't start to fade until the early-mid 20th century, when offset printing first came into being. Think about that for a minute. The letterpress, and all its many incarnations, ruled the printing landscape for over 400 years. For 400 years, that was how people did business. There were press operators, typesetters, and illustrators who day and night ran the machines and created what people saw in print. And even in the 20th century, when offset printing and photo-typesetting dominated the market, many, many people were still necessary to keep things running smoothly.

Then Apple Computer released the Macintosh in 1984, the second commercially available computer (Apple's "Lisa" was the first) with what we now know as a "graphical user interface" or GUI (ie. point, click, drag, mouse, desktop, windows, etc). They got Ridley Scott to do a REALLY cool Superbowl commercial for it. My dad actually bought one of the first "Fat Macs" (meaning it had 512K of on-board memory, instead of 128K) in 1985, with an Imagewriter II printer and an external floppy disk drive. People laughed it off as a "toy," and business types wouldn't come near it. But by the time I had graduated from the College of Design at NC State in 1996, Macs had overtaken the graphic design industry. The idea of hundreds of separate individuals doing the layout, typesetting, illustrations, and photography was ludicrous. One person could now wear all those hats pretty effectively, and in college that's what we were taught to do.

At the same time, the music business was changing. Prior to the 1990s, most indie rock bands released singles and albums on 7" vinyl or cassette. Certainly in the DJ business, vinyl was (and in some areas, remains) the standard. Even CD duplication on a large scale was costly. The "Big 5" record labels were the gate keepers of the business, controlling everything from distribution chains, to stores, to venues, to recording studios. And for an unsigned band trying to record a new album or song, going into a recording studio meant spending thousands of dollars - and with limited funds came limited studio time. Recording music to hard disk for many years was simply not possible, especially for independent artists. Reel to reel was the standard for most of the 20th century. Even I recorded my first album "Breakup" to Alesis ADAT tape, using an old Mac Performa to arrange simple MIDI parts while my producer sat at the soundboard for hours, both of us tweaking until we got the thing just right. Prior to that, I used a Tascam Portastudio (a 4-track cassette recorder) and a Boss drum machine to make demos in my dorm room.

Skip ahead 15 more years. My iPhone (also an Apple product), which is probably smaller than the size of an old cassette walkman, can take hi-definition video, hi-resolution photos that are on par with some of the best point-and-shoot cameras out there (and in some cases, even standard-bearing 35mm cameras), store the entirety of my musical collection (as in every song I've ever listened to, since birth), and instantly communicate with anyone on earth, in almost every form you can imagine - phone, email, text, instant message, video conference, you name it. From my home studio (anchored by a Mac Pro tower), I can write, arrange, record, produce, master AND distribute music I create, instantly. I can then design, code, and market a website to promote that music - all from the same computer which I produced the music on. In fact, I could do all of the above on my 6-year-old Mac laptop.

As of August 2012, Apple is the largest publicly-traded corporation in the world. Their market cap is larger than that of Google and Microsoft combined, and within a space of about 20 years, they irrevocably changed the printing, publishing and music industries. Whole market sectors were rendered obsolete, and many people found themselves out of work. Meanwhile, iTunes, Spotify and Pandora now dominate the musical landscape, and what's left of the music industry is floundering. Save for a few independent college music and used CD stores, standalone music retailers are a thing of the past. How the mighty have fallen.

Of course, Apple's day could be just around the corner also. And that's my point. Technology is changing so quickly that the idea of any one industry lasting for 400 years - or even 50 - is now itself an obsolete concept. As a member of "Generation X," a graphic designer and musician, I've been witness to almost all of it. I didn't have the internet growing up, or cell phones, or email. My grandmother, up until her passing in 2010, hand-wrote me a letter a week, and then a letter a month for as long as I could remember. Friends who did internships or study abroad programs had to communicate with letters as well, because long-distance phone calls were simply too expensive and again, we really had no access to email. Because I was in a profession being driven by technology, I either had to adapt or become obsolete myself. That's not a generational concept, that's simply a matter of survival. If I don't work, I can't eat. And I can't work unless I continue to stay ahead of the curve.

I was raised to believe that I would find one career path, one job, one company and that they would take care of me until retirement. That's what I've wanted for almost my entire life, but because of outsourcing, down-sizing, and contract labor - it probably won't be a reality. And for those younger than me, it's even more applicable. They've grown up with instantaneous communication, instant gratification, and immediacy of control - because that's the system that was created for them, by those who came before them. They've watched their moms, dads, older brothers and sisters work themselves to death under the old(er) system and receive peanuts in return. They don't care about brink-and-mortar storefronts, or cubicle farms like the ones represented in "Office Space." They (or anyone else, for that matter) can conduct their business at any time of day or night, in business casual or their birthday suit, all from the comfort of their own bedroom.

Generational stereotyping is dangerous because longevity gives us a false sense of security. The bottom line is that technology is not generational, and is constantly changing, upgrading, revising. Innovation can happen anywhere, at anytime, by anyone with the ability to do it - old or young. If you take comfort in the fact that the banks will continue to open for business every day at 8:30am, think again. If you take comfort in the fact that your entitlements will save you, think again. You won't simply be out of work, or laid off, or forced to take early retirement.

You will be obsolete.

There are no big deals.

I learned from my girlfriend recently that among animals, fear is the quickest instinct to learn and the hardest to unlearn. Seems to me that characteristic is true of us all. I've been having a lot of spiritual struggles lately related to this. What is it about the human condition that makes suffering our greatest teacher? If we're wired to seek some (supposedly) benevolent entity outside of ourselves for guidance, then why did said entity allow suffering to come into being in the first place?

I guess I have to take a step back and examine what it is that suffering has done for me. Probably the single biggest axiom I've learned is this:

"There are no big deals."

Growing up, everything was a big deal. Even the smallest mistake - a dish left unwashed in the sink, a chore undone - was met with the most serious consequences. One thing remainined in its wake: crippling anxiety. I did not have abusive parents, but what I did have were parents also raised to be anxious themselves, passed down and passed on by those who came before them.

That anxiety has haunted me more or less since birth. I tried telling so many people people about how I felt, describe the gun-wrenching pain to them in a way that made sense. First my parents, who often told me simply "you just have to suck it up!" One of my greatest resentments I've had to face is that the ones closest to me were probably the poorest listeners - or at least what I interpreted to be poor listening. But how could they have known? Parents are closest to their children - if they're doing it right - which (as my father pointed out to me) makes it hard for them to clearly see exactly what might be wrong.

Then there were guidance counselors (useless), teachers (overworked, underpaid and unconcerned), and "friends." And then there were relationships. I could go on and on about my romantic relationships. When they work, they're amazing, and when they're bad...well, yeah. I then turned to religion, thinking perhaps that the reason for my suffering was the fact that I turned from God somehow. At first I found comfort there, and belonging. Sadly, I then uncovered a world of judgment, uncharitable opinions and polarizing politics, rooted in legalistic interpretation of religious dogma. Salvation was about numbers, attendance (they called it "accountability"), catch-phrases, buzzwords and keeping up appearances.

In fact, after attending Lollapalooza 1993, one of our field-staffers took me aside during youth group and told me that she didn't think Jesus would've gone with me. I knew instinctively that this was a point of view that didn't mesh with my beliefs AT ALL. I didn't realize it then, but I had become disillusioned with religion. (I would turn back to religion one other time in my life for some source of comfort, and would simply find more of the same.)

So I joined a band, and took refuge in the one thing that has *always* consistently provided me with solace and comfort: music.

Actually, I was already in a band - I just threw myself into it whole-heartedly this time. We found ourselves in a recording studio, and on day 3 of our studio session, I sat on a leather couch with my three friends and we listened as the fruits of our labor came out of huge studio monitors in the wall. I knew at that moment, at 21 years of age, that I'd found my place in the world. Not in college, not in my job, but right there in that recording studio. Sadly, A recording studio (at the time) was a prohibitvely expensive place to find a sense of balance in one's life. And the inner conflict between doing what I loved (music) vs. doing what I needed to do to provide for myself (work) and/or doing what looked good in the eyes of the world and my parents (finishing college) was an additional source of anxiety on top of everything else.

So in the end, I found better living through chemistry before I found healing, or solutions, or balance. I had developed two faces, a public face and a private face. The face I thought the world wanted to see, and the face that was really me - where everything was a "big deal." No one can exist in that condition indefinitely. Life catches up. It was at that point I began to learn about real suffering, and unmanageability.

So I may not understand why, or be able to accept the existence of suffering. But I know that today I have peace. Peace that comes through honesty, and reconciliation, and hope. Peace that comes through good health. And yes, peace that comes through MUSIC.
I have peace knowing that there are NO big deals.

Anecdote from a CVS

My girlfriend and I were at CVS waiting in the check-out line, and sitting in one of the chairs at the Pharmacy counter was a co-ed who had obviously just graduated from UNC. She was also talking on her mobile, at full volume, about every detail of her life for the last 3 days. At first i was annoyed. Then I began to feel like I was on some reality show and the camera was rolling. Maybe I am. "And OMG, do you know what she SAID about me? I was like, really hurt, you know???" I began to remember college. The more things change, the more they stay the same. She concluded her conversation with the following: "So then they played 'Carolina In My Mind', and like, I just lost it. OMG." They play that at EVERY UNC graduation. James Taylor was a UNC grad. No big shock. (Mr. Rogers spoke at my commencement, no lie. We all sang "Won't you be my neighbor." No one lost it, I don't think.) ...and the kicker: "So I was like, OMG college is over, what's left of my life?" LOL!!!! :) I wanted to grab her phone, point at the cashier - and the customer - and say, "Absolutely NOTHING. You're either going to serve, or you're going to GET served." JG