Out of curiosity, I researched the popular pastime of grouping human beings, mostly of the last century, into generational categories. Some of the names I had not heard of. Novelist Gertrude Stein referred to those people who had survived World War I, leaving them aimless and reckless, as the “Lost Generation”. This group of people was born from around 1901 to 1927, amid the Roaring “20’s. The generation following them, born between 1928 and 1945 lived through the Great Depression and were to become known as the Greatest Generation. Those born amid World War II and the economic depression that came with it are known as the Silent Generation. The Baby Boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964 were the product of post war prosperity and industrialization. Generation X constitutes the children born of the Baby Boomers between approximately 1965 and 1980. Those born after 1980 to about 1995 are called Millennials. Children born after mid-1990 to 2010 are known as the Z Generation. The current generation, or those born after 2011 until approximately 2025 have been named Generation Alpha. Generation Alpha is the only generation to be exclusive to the 21st century.
These demarcations are blurry, of course, due to natural overlap. Looking at human beings over this long range, the differences in how these groups look at and approach life, are quite different. Is this evidence of our human evolvement? Perhaps neither Homo sapiens, nor any other species is a “finished product”, but an ever changing and evolving being. While we retain many of the same physical characteristics, our views and our everyday lives are hugely different from that of our great, great grandparents, as are the early humans whose fossils have been studied. While I personally do not like labels or compartmentalizing people, when we realize our own insignificance in the grand scheme of life, we become a curiosity even to ourselves.
