Umair, you are a gifted writer with a voice worth listening to. I loved this piece and I can sympathize with these exact feelings, even though I am one of the elders you say have let your generation down. I too have felt grief just like this in my teens and twenties. I too blamed the generations that came before me. It took me 15years to get over that and I wish it had happened sooner. There is still hope for you.
You say “ Bang! And then the future vanished. Gone. Did it implode? Was it stolen? Did it disappear? No one seems to know. The wise men haven’t written those books yet.”
But alas, those books ARE being written. You just haven’t read them. I strongly, strongly urge you to seek out the writings of historian Yuval Noah Harari who wrote three brilliant books: Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. I guarantee you will feel differently about much of what you wrote here after reading these books and fully understanding the implications.
And then when you’re done, spend a few hours watching the recent Joe Rogan Experience episode with Elon Musk. All of this will pull things together quite nicely for you I think.
Don’t spend too much time being angry at prior generations. We’ve done our best, we’re human, and you live in a pretty amazing world, despite all of its problems. What is going on now is NOT a negative reflection on previous generations. It’s the natural progression of things for the human species.
The old stories we tell ourselves and live by are dying (first fascism and authoritarianism, then communism/socialism, and now liberal democracy). We are in a transition period. We need a NEW story for humanity to move forward. What will it be? Will you help to tell it?