Jonesing towards enlightenment

Thanks to William Harryman at Integral Options Café I can now finally place myself in one of those hip generational categories. I was born in 1961 (same year as Obama) and while I was definitely influenced by the protests and counter-culture of the hippies I was way too young to actually participate in any of that stuff and never felt I belonged in the baby Boomer generation.

I grew up with the ideas that sex before marriage was OK and that equality was to be striven for, but sex before marriage was by then so common that it wasn’t rebellious but status quo, and equality was already being legislated into existence in the form of sex and racial discrimination legislation. Again, these things were becoming part of the established way of doing things.

I wasn’t in rebellion against the boomers and so didn’t qualify for Generation X. And apparently I’m not alone in feeling that I don’t have a generation, because a whole bunch of other people who are in the same situation are now being called Generation Jones.

Nationwide, those who are exact same age as Obama say they are GenJonesers, not Boomers or Xers

A new poll released today, of a nationally representative sample of 500 U.S. adults born in 1961—the same year Obama was born—shows that today’s 47 year olds clearly feel not like Boomers nor Gen Xers, but instead believe they belong to the heretofore lost generation in-between Boomers and Xers…Generation Jones. ThirdAge, a popular website for mid-lifers, commissioned the poll, in conjunction with Obama’s Aug. 4, 2008 birthday. When respondents were asked which generation they believe they are a part of: 57% chose Generation Jones, while only 22% picked Baby Boomer, and only 21% said Generation X. ThirdAge, a site that is known for prioritizing consumer insight about its audience, has used this insight to build one of the most popular mid-lifer websites, with over 500,000 unique visitors a month. The underlying concept for the poll was that rather than focusing on expert opinion to determine the question of Obama’s generational identity, a very effective way of answering this question is to ask the actual people born in 1961 to self-identify their generation.

Question:

500 U.S. adults born in 1961 were asked:

“Do you consider yourself to be a member of the Baby Boom Generation, Generation X, or a lost generation in-between (usually called Generation Jones)?”

Results:

22% chose: Baby Boom Generation
57% chose: Generation Jones
21% chose: Generation X

ThirdAge commissioned this polling of a nationally representative sample of 500 U.S. adults born in 1961, conducted July 31- August 1, 2008. The polling was conducted by MarketTools, using TrueSample technology, which has recently emerged as a top U.S. polling firm, with a long list of Fortune500 company clients.

Apparently the term Generation Jones derives from the slang term “jonesing,” to indicate that this generation feels “unrequited cravings and unfulfilled expectations.” (Which generation doesn’t?) But that makes the term much cooler than it initially sounded to my ears. I’d assumed it must have something to do with “keeping up with the Joneses” or (worse) Jonestown. Hey, but “jonesing” — that’s pretty cool. In Buddhism “dukkha” could be partly defined as “jonesing” and is a creative force. Even in refined meditative states it’s recommended that you not settle down and get complacent, but keep on looking for that element of existential dissatisfaction that keeps pushing you onwards. So here I am, with my generation, jonesing towards enlightenment.