"They inhabit a world so rich in technology that everything works better, even the people, but no one seems to know exactly why. Parented by proxy, and prescription, and by cable TV, they have achieved the loneliness their elders pursued. They enter their twenties less interested in finding themselves than in finding a way out. Faithless, hopeless, untutored in love, they make babies for the sake of company and kill themselves with unspeakable violence with staggering numbers--suffering from a deficiency in meaning acquired from pop culture, pop psychology, feel-good religion, that tells them don't worry, be happy, take care of yourself and your self-esteem. They stand to inherit, along with the spiritual void their parents have left them, the bill from the card it was all charged to."
The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
Thomas Lynch
