Over the past crazy two weeks, with the funeral of an old friend, two tragic wildfires and their resulting Red Cross shelters, a trip to San Diego and a major Fourth of July parade under my belt, I have found one recurring strand:  I feel most comfortable around people between the ages of 14-30.

Millennials, like all rising generations, get a bad rap from those older than themselves.  They are not as tradition-bound as Baby Boomers, nor are they as acquisitive as members of Generation X.  They actually most resemble- the GI Generation!  Why?  Both generations are about recovery from hardship and disaster.  The current rising generation has not seen their world hit rock-bottom, yet.  There is, however, a cosmic sense that “It’s coming”, hence the plethora of media about vampires, zombies and extra-terrestrial invaders.

It’s not without precedent.  The 1930’s and ’40’s had Buck Rogers films, the original Dracula and Frankenstein series and a later concern, in the ’50’s, with nuclear holocaust.

The Millennials can relate to the plausibility of a reversion to survival instincts and the tribal life.  Witness television of recent times:  “Survivor”, “Lost”, “Siberia”, “The Walking Dead”, “Revolution”, “Under the Dome”, “True Blood”- all concerned with dystopia and its aftermath.  “Breaking Bad” explores decent into dystopia in the lives of one man and his circle of family and friends.  The same theme reverberates in film and other media.

I grew up wondering how I would deal with dystopia.  I focused greatly on the affairs of the wider world, which put me largely outside the loop with my Baby Boomer peers, especially with other boys and men, who were more concerned with the parochial and day-to-day that was right in front of them.  Like Robert F. Kennedy, I paraphrased G.B. Shaw:  “I think of things that never were and say, ‘Why not?'”

Another reason, closer to home, binds me to the Millennial Generation:  My son is a member of it.  His friends are mostly Millennials. His future wife will most likely be from within his generation.  In my own wife’s last years, I found my home was a refuge of sorts, for the people in Aram’s social circle who were either homeless or strangers within their own family.  This brought me into e-culture, the unique and very subtle humor which that culture has spawned, the colourful slang expressions that come from it and the post-racial, post-sexist worldview that is slowly taking root among Millennials.    Racists and sexists walk among the Millennials and reproduce, but they are seen by their peers, increasingly, as anachronistic embarrassments, appendages of a fading generation.

Two things, though, bind me to Aram’s generation and to the one which is coming after it (which I will call Generation AA, born since 2001.).  First, there is a global, unified, holistic sense of things.  People know what I’m talking about when I mention a particular situation in a country far from where we happen to be speaking.  The tendency to redirect back to “around here”, so prevalent among those over the age of 40, is not so evident among Millennials, though they are quite adept at being present in the now.

The second tie that binds is I am accepted as a friend, an equal, by the vast majority of young people whom I encounter.  Maybe it’s the fact that I respect them for their strengths and gifts, and try not to dominate, but I feel their acceptance is genuine.  They neither refrain from correcting what they feel I might be doing wrong, in a loving way, nor do they hold back appreciation of what I do on their behalf.  The honesty permeates our relationships, and I don’t think it is just a feature of naivete or idealism.  Millennials have not had the luxury of idealism, without attendant action.  Every dream they have ever entertained has had to be followed up with intense action.  There will be no “Flower Power” phase on this watch.

Besides Aram, I count four particular people of the Millennial Generation as friends who have my back, no matter what.  Three of them are women.  While I begrudge nothing of older men who have taken Millennial women as mates, such an arrangement is not my purpose.  I love them as friends, and encourage their romantic life to be with their age-mates.

It is also true that I have many friends among all generations, including my own.  They, too, invariably relate well to “the kids”.  This is what sustains us, and will bring us along, through what ever calamities and troubles that will occur, as the world is cleansed.