This Millennial Scourge
Poison, Anger, & Brain Damage
Me, 8 years old, watching two grown men fist fighting over access to a port-a-potty then later watching a heated argument over whether mayo belongs on a hamburger ending with enraged cursing; just a day in the life of a boy in 1980. This wasn’t normal, and I understood something was wrong, even as a child. Witnessing violent encounters erupt from disagreements of an inconsequential nature, sometimes resulting in fistfights because someone was very passionate about enjoying Hill Street Blues and someone else disliked the show or some other abysmally unimportant thing had made me wonder what exactly was wrong with adults. They certainly seemed stupidly hostile and exhibited a lack of self-control. Every outing to the grocery store may involve bizarre behaviors from excessively overt sexual innuendo, angry encounters and witnessing multiple incidents of parents hitting their children over a look on their faces. The ’70s were definitely an era of short tempers and unpredictable behaviors, and the ’80s were a testament to how cruel people could become. Little did I know at that time, there was a reason for the reckless abandonment of self-control and temperament.
The current past few years have been scarred with irrationally angry boomers lashing out at younger generations. Older generations criticizing younger generations is not abnormal, what is peculiar is the viscerally aberrant nature of the use of the word millennials. It’s spit out like a curse word, usually followed by snowflake, safe space and apathetic accusations of excessive sensitivity. It is not astonishing to witness considering the people most likely to use these adjectives are the very same adults I witnessed during the ’70s and ’80s. It’s an unfortunate outcropping of unmitigated greed that led to this, and it is the same phenomenon that the boomer generation blindly protects even when it has made their lives miserable and cursed them with health issues. Worse, they are completely unaware.
Millennials are charged with inheriting a world still ruled by the boomer generation, and they are seriously frustrated by the constant irrationality of older generations making dangerous choices for all of us. Is it any wonder they’ve coined the term, “O.K. Boomer.”? Neither the boomer nor the millennial fully understand the situation they are in, although Millennials may have more accurate suspicions of the competency of boomers.
During WWII, tetraethyl lead was developed to prevent knocks and pings in gasoline engines and likely helped the allies win the war effort. Like any so-called miracle of its kind, it generated a great amount of cash. Since the ’50s groups fought to have it removed from gasoline as it was no longer needed due to engineering changes and the dangers of lead were well understood by the medical community. The parents of the boomers came home to a new world, many with untreated PTSD, and exposure to lead. They luckily hadn’t grown up in a world filled with a leaded atmosphere, so beyond the psychological damage suffered from the war they were affected somewhat less than their offspring. The tetraethyl lead miracle was not addressed until the very late ’80s, at about 2.5 decades after testing found dangerous levels throughout the environment. It was an ecological disaster beyond the magnitude of anything we have ever done. It was floating in all the water supplies. This wasn’t like rapid onset lead poisoning; it was much more insidious and impacted developed society worse than any illicit drug.
Tetraethyl lead pollution resulted in an estimated 2 to 3-point loss of IQ, increased cardiac arrests, increased rates of cancer and neurological issues, and affected impulse control and the mental health of the population. Testing was performed city by city, region by region and country by country and all found a path of societal violence and crime increasing at the same ratio as environmental tetraethyl lead. The same exists for all other health issues. Once Tetraethyl lead had been banned the curve followed a downward trend for these same effects. Growing up in a world filled with lead had some extreme consequences involving the loss of IQ which resulted in paranoia and impulse control issues that resulted in many societal changes that altered the course of history and technological development. We are still experiencing the impact. Neighbors are suspicious of each other; the sense of community and communal responsibility has vanished. People rarely borrow a cup of sugar from the person next door and if you try, they likely wonder what the hell is wrong with you. These things were common in 1950, although the period was far from perfect, we lost each other along the way to an enlightened society to insidious brain damage. We lost each other to the want of money. Tetraethyl lead was not kept around for necessity, it hadn’t been needed since the 1950s, it was kept around by oil lobbyists and corrupt politicians because it made money. As long as people didn’t realize the leaded only label on their gas cap was only there to extract more money at the pump and not for mechanical reasons, then there would be no reason to remove it. Capitalism failed us and, quite frankly, made us stupid.
These God-awful sensitive snowflakes and their sensitivities and safe places! Since the ban, environmental levels of tetraethyl lead have been dropping off. Many millennials were born after the ban, making them the first generation considerably less impacted by lead. It’s still there and kicks up out of the soil during hot months. Hotter regions that experienced heavy contamination were and still are impacted more than those that don’t have extended heat waves. Imagine the southern states. How terribly horrible it must be to deal with a generation that is considerably less impacted by lead poisoning! These spoiled sensitive millennials are the first generation not to have severe lead poisoning like their predecessors. How might that be a problem?
Boomers should accept the reality of their blunders and mistakes, especially those that made them impetuously hostile to later generations, and they should rethink how all those beatings they administered on gen X out of rage impacted the millennial generation. Millennials are the first near-normal humans on the surface of the planet in the developed world since the 1930s, and maybe their sensitivity is just normal human empathy and your lack thereof is simply brain damage. For the sake of the future of humanity, step down. We don’t need more anger and impulsive decisions. Trust me, I’m Gen X and we certainly are seriously messed up and on learning enhancing drugs, antidepressants, antianxiety meds and if we’re lucky, we didn’t die as teenagers from gunshots over a perceived insult. It’s time for boomers to retire.
