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Generations

Jim78

Probationary
I was witness to two displays of complete and utter moral cowardice on another site the other day. Yet those people tried to outwardly display an image of toughness. My interpretation is that they were enslaved to the worst aspects of the millenial generation. They knew no boundaries, they showed no respect and like spoilt children they set out to use anything, even private conversations, to try to hurt me and take my character publicly using outright lies and exagerations and such.

The majority of twentieth century generations don't, and haven't, behaved like that in my experience so it got me thinking about the issue of nature versus nurture again.

Even with past life memories are we all merely a product of our time? How much do you think past lives influence our current attitudes and moral outlooks?

Personally I find that my thinking and moral standpoints are fairly similar to my most recent past lives but sometimes when I see the behaviour of others they seem to be a product of their time.

Although in saying that I remember in the 1990s creating a play, stories and poems that were similar in structure to late 90s stories such as The Matrix and Fight Club. At the time they were released and I saw the similarities I thought "I am just a product of my generation, I am creating similar stuff to my peers."

Perhaps our morals and attitudes are a mixture of both nature and nurture.

How do you all feel about about the generational question? Do you believe, even in the light of reincarnation, that you are merely a product of your time or do past lives shape the adult you become?
 
Hi, Im sorry this happened to you. I think it is sometimes a mix of both, sometimes the pl talking and sometimes just plain ignorance in the current self...but then we have karma...
 
I think that the older you get, soul wise, the more you stay the same. I also think there's a point where you "wake up" and shake off this life's "nurturing" as you put it and you get back to your old self. I imagine that takes place somewhere in early adulthood. I think younger souls, who have not developed a fused or stable sense of self, if you will, are more likely to be influenced and nurtured by the times they live in.

I look back at my last two lives and I know I'm the same too in terms terms of core ethics, values and even food, music preferences and so on. I think those things are the core of who we are and they don't change from life to life, or at least, as you get older in soul age, they don't.

I hit a point in my 30s and I realized every movie I had watched or something, was simply a retelling of something I had seen before when I was kid. It hits you that as you're now 30, the people writing and making movies are and they're just copying the stuff they saw when they were kids and the people that made those TV shows and movies did the exact same thing before them too!

I think that's just the influence of being young in this life. It's still new to you and you are influenced by it. But i also think you're guided by your values and ethics and you return to them later, or more strongly than in your youth.

I feel there's a duality of cycles within cycles.. your soul ages and matures and so you do you in each life. You still have to be born, get used to the new era you live in though.. so there's a cycle there of growth and maturity as well. And then like I said, I think at some point in young or early adult hood, you catch up to your soul age.
 
This is a hard question to address without getting "political" for me; I see the Disinformation faction adding and using its methodology to get votes here in the USA. Take the Fascist group calling themselves "Antifa" that is presumably anti-fascist, add that to the other insecurities of a generation that has been pampered for the most part and been through a lowered-standard education that deprived them of basics like History. It seems to me that there is a much narrower pathway in communicating with them as I'm "too old to understand".
 
Ken, if you want to look at it that way, yes, everyone younger than me has grown up in a polarized world where having your feelings hurt means that you've been wronged or deprived somehow and simply screaming loudly in one form or another means that you are also "right".

I agree Ken, younger people aren't taught self reliance and more importantly, accountability. They aren't taught or encouraged to question things and seek out the objective truth.

That said, I don't involve myself in online forums or discussions very often anymore. They're filled with bored people who sit in the rafters, waiting for someone to have an opinion or expose some other vulnerability and they'll harp and troll away while ignoring and deflecting anything sent back at them. It's a pointless waste of time really.
 
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Ken, if you want to look at it that way, yes, everyone younger than me has grown up in a polarized world where having your feelings hurt means that you've been wronged or deprived somehow and simply screaming loudly in one form or another means that you are also "right".

I agree Ken, younger people aren't taught self reliance and more importantly, accountability. They aren't taught or encouraged to question things and seek out the objective truth.

That said, I don't involve myself in online forums or discussions very often anymore. They're filled with bored people who sit in the rafters, waiting for someone to have an opinion or expose some other vulnerability and they'll harp and troll away while ignoring and deflecting anything sent back at them. It's a pointless waste of time really.

Couldn’t agree more with what you’ve said here. Have been on the net more than half of my life now and you have to learn to navigate it wisely. My motto is if it isn’t helpful or supportive, let it go. My spare time with three kids is precious enough as it is.
 
Hi Jaime.

How do you think karma plays into generational thinking? Do you mean that the rules of the game are already set up and we are subject to current life influences through our karma?

Hi Tortoro.

I understand what you mean. It took me until my mid twenties to shake off the 'nurturing' of my childhood. When I did I became much more like my past life selves. Indeed it took me longer to succeed in my life this go round than it had in my immediate last life.

I understand what you mean about generational influences. I guess The Matrix etc precursors were the stories of Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick etc and I had also absorbed those stories before taking my own writing seriously.

Yup Tortoro. Some people who are young in their mind are probably young in spirit too. As you say there are multiple cycles. Childhood to adulthood seems to be a microcosm of the souls journey through its successive lives.

Hi Ken.

I know what you mean about a pampered generation with a lowered standard of education. It does mean their worldview is much narrower than ours. They don't know hardship generally. They just think they know it.

In the past when I was growing up life was very much geared towards community. People supported each other. Nowadays it seems the millenial generation is all about the individual. They seem to think feeling entitled is the same as a right for instance. They take innocent opinions and free speech personally because they think everything is about them and then they are out with the pitchforks to attack those perceived slights. They don't seem to know how to fight nor what is the good fight. They seem almost Victorian in their moralistic stance to me.

I'm reminded of Oscar Wilde. The Victorians hauled him over the coals because of who he loved. Nowadays many millenials do the same to people, through irrationality and unreasonable debate, just in a different context.

Its ironic really because these millenials would nowadays embrace Wilde in their virtue signalling yet their inclusivity only stretches as far as those whom they deem will give them an image of virtuousness. That's not true inclusivity. Inclusivity has nothing to do with public image or embracing only those one agrees with. It has to be about everybody IMO.

I know what you mean Tortoro. The feeling I felt most the other day was disappointment. To me those people really let themselves down, they behaved in a vulgar fashion and played the victim. Personally I ain't a victim and I don't scream loudly to have my point heard. I simply deconstruct others points and construct my own points in an empirical fashion. Unfortunately I was doing it to millenials so I 'hurt their feelings' and to some millenials hurting their feelings gives them what they think is the moral high ground and they then think they have the freedom to behave in an immoral fashion. They don't live in reality IMO.

Yup Tortoro. Younger people aren't taught accountability. All many of them seem too know is justification that reinforces their delusion of righteousness. Many great evils can be born from such childish thinking IMO.

Ignoring and deflecting is what many of them seem to be all about. Covering their ears like children and saying "I'm not listening." Pointing fingers and accusing one of the behaviours they are guilty of and so on. Nobody becomes a fully formed, stable, confident adult with those attitudes IMO.
 
Ignoring and deflecting is what many of them seem to be all about. Covering their ears like children and saying "I'm not listening." Pointing fingers and accusing one of the behaviours they are guilty of and so on. Nobody becomes a fully formed, stable, confident adult with those attitudes IMO.

Agree hundred percent with this.
 
Couldn’t agree more with what you’ve said here. Have been on the net more than half of my life now and you have to learn to navigate it wisely. My motto is if it isn’t helpful or supportive, let it go. My spare time with three kids is precious enough as it is.

You your kids, your pets and your sanity!! lol
 
You your kids, your pets and your sanity!! lol

Most of my time and energy goes to that, not online bickering. If I want to hear bickering I get plenty of it when all the kids are on school holidays. Remind me why I don’t have pets...
 
Hi Jaime.

How do you think karma plays into generational thinking? Do you mean that the rules of the game are already set up and we are subject to current life influences through our karma?

Hi Tortoro.

I understand what you mean. It took me until my mid twenties to shake off the 'nurturing' of my childhood. When I did I became much more like my past life selves. Indeed it took me longer to succeed in my life this go round than it had in my immediate last life.

I understand what you mean about generational influences. I guess The Matrix etc precursors were the stories of Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick etc and I had also absorbed those stories before taking my own writing seriously.

Yup Tortoro. Some people who are young in their mind are probably young in spirit too. As you say there are multiple cycles. Childhood to adulthood seems to be a microcosm of the souls journey through its successive lives.

Hi Ken.

I know what you mean about a pampered generation with a lowered standard of education. It does mean their worldview is much narrower than ours. They don't know hardship generally. They just think they know it.

In the past when I was growing up life was very much geared towards community. People supported each other. Nowadays it seems the millenial generation is all about the individual. They seem to think feeling entitled is the same as a right for instance. They take innocent opinions and free speech personally because they think everything is about them and then they are out with the pitchforks to attack those perceived slights. They don't seem to know how to fight nor what is the good fight. They seem almost Victorian in their moralistic stance to me.

I'm reminded of Oscar Wilde. The Victorians hauled him over the coals because of who he loved. Nowadays many millenials do the same to people, through irrationality and unreasonable debate, just in a different context.

Its ironic really because these millenials would nowadays embrace Wilde in their virtue signalling yet their inclusivity only stretches as far as those whom they deem will give them an image of virtuousness. That's not true inclusivity. Inclusivity has nothing to do with public image or embracing only those one agrees with. It has to be about everybody IMO.

I know what you mean Tortoro. The feeling I felt most the other day was disappointment. To me those people really let themselves down, they behaved in a vulgar fashion and played the victim. Personally I ain't a victim and I don't scream loudly to have my point heard. I simply deconstruct others points and construct my own points in an empirical fashion. Unfortunately I was doing it to millenials so I 'hurt their feelings' and to some millenials hurting their feelings gives them what they think is the moral high ground and they then think they have the freedom to behave in an immoral fashion. They don't live in reality IMO.

Yup Tortoro. Younger people aren't taught accountability. All many of them seem too know is justification that reinforces their delusion of righteousness. Many great evils can be born from such childish thinking IMO.

Ignoring and deflecting is what many of them seem to be all about. Covering their ears like children and saying "I'm not listening." Pointing fingers and accusing one of the behaviours they are guilty of and so on. Nobody becomes a fully formed, stable, confident adult with those attitudes IMO.
Hi Jim 78 !
Yes I should have explained myself more, I'm sorry, I was so curious I just had to comment ( but I was suppose to be working...), so it was a short reply on my part . What I meant is that when people are ignorant about something karma will educate them so they won't be ignorant about it in the future. If I should take a sad example. In a past life I think me being self-hurting, self destructive and dying in a way that made my loved ones suffer was then a big surprise to me after ( did not think I deserved to feel loved like that, I thought there would be a feeling of relief that I had died, that now someone I loved was free to find someone else who would be better than I was ). In a future life I had to sit by in torture to see a loved one be self destructive and die in a similar way that I did not know if he had set his mind to die, or if it was if it happened it was alright by him, he was pushing for death, or if it was accidental. So it was my turn to feel what he had already been through with me before. No matter how much he had tried to make me realize he loved me I had my wall up, my truth, that told me I did not deserve his love and it couldn't be. I had no trouble accepting my great love for him, though. So lesson learned - as painful as it now was ( wish it had been less painful... ).
When people don't know better they simply don't and it may not have to do with generation. These days with Internet and people being anonymous is new experience, it has not happened in past life so people who don't know better will behave like they don't. I guess that is my thoughts on the matter.
I hope I make better sense now with how I think ? :)
 
did not think I deserved to feel loved like that, I thought there would be a feeling of relief that I had died, that now someone I loved was free to find someone else who would be better than I was
Wow, yes, I'm living that myself!
 
Wow, yes, I'm living that myself!
I'm sorry, you should never feel like this. It is after all not our decision on how someone else loves us, that is their privilege, we have to learn to accept love as well : )
 
If you think that it is only millenials then you got blinders on as no generation is clean from moral failings, just look at the boomers and the tens of millions that would have been gen x but were ultimately aborted in the US alone.
 
T&BA, your post is leading in a bad direction for the forum rules, but I'll address it. I'm from the generation prior to the baby-boomers and have a bit of understanding of that generation. You can cherry-pick issues that don't fit activities that of TODAY'S standards and think of them from OUR CURRENT perspective without having the experience. Birth-control is a somewhat new product, my generation did not have all of the options that are now available, and there is/was a lot of racial "cleansing" going on that people now do not understand.
 
Hi Jaimie.

Yeah it makes better sense. Thanks. I too can relate to my inability to accept love from my early adulthood. That stemmed from a self destructive streak and low self esteem. Has you multi life journey through the concept of love changed you? You were clear on the fact that you experienced different perspectives on love but you didn't actually say whether or not you have come to accept love in your life. Have you?

I guess I have always had people ( particularly insecure people ) try to control me. Sure in my last life I had an Empire hunt me in an attempt to control me. My breaking the shackles of control is a recurrent theme in all of my lives yet when it happens with people who supposedly know me I wonder if they are stupid? Don't they know it won't work?

Yup your right, its easy to be brave on the internet. Personally I'm the same person online as I am in my real life. I don't have an image to uphold, I am responsible enough to respect people online as in real life, I ain't trying to manipulate people into seeing me a certain way. I'm just myself. It might not be that those people don't know any better Jaime, they may be too weak psychologically to be honest with themselves you know? Maybe they are young souls I dunno.
 
Hi T&BA.

Did I say only millenials have moral failings? I've discussed many times on this site my own moral failings and I'm Gen X. I've discussed the moral abuses of the powerful also and they were the Silent Generation and Boomers.

I'm simply pointing out the weaknesses of some millenials because I was unfortunate enough to have dealings with them this week and they got me thinking about how much a person is of their time and how much of it stems from past lives.

The truth is that I haven't had anyone from the other generations I've mentioned throw private conversations back at me publicly in an attempt to discredit me since I was a child in the playground with other Gen Xers. That's the difference I've noticed between some millenials and older generations generally. Some Millenials haven't grown up whereas older generations had to grow up.
 
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My view on the generation argument, which of course is an opinion and should be treated as such.

The generation that we are born into plays a role in that it is part of the 'script' that is written even before we are born. We can add to that script upbringing, culture and society. Generations vary from culture to culture, for instance.

My experience has been that when something traumatic happens to an individual, they are temporarily, or permanently if the trauma is deep enough, taken (or thrown) from this script and can look at the bigger picture from the outside in. Often this causes the individual to open doors into ways of thinking that were not apparent before -- one of those may be a spiritual opening, knowledge of reincarnation being one of those. This seems to burst through the generation argument and create individuals who seem 'beyond their time'. If you look at history, the great sages and thinkers usually fit this profile.

Personally this happened to me when I was a young teen and experienced psychological abuse that very nearly led to taking my own life. But I also recall such an opening in my past life. Whether this opening was taken or not is another matter. All I can say is that all that has happened has led me to where I am now.

One of my favourite poets, Garcia Lorca, put this in a much more poetical way in his poem 'La leyenda del tiempo (The legend of time):

Nadie puede abrir semillas
en el corazón del sueño

(Nobody can open seeds
in the heart of the dream)

Seeds here being knowledge, universal, deep knowledge that spans beyond each generation, indeed beyond time itself.
 
Hi Jaimie.

Yeah it makes better sense. Thanks. I too can relate to my inability to accept love from my early adulthood. That stemmed from a self destructive streak and low self esteem. Has you multi life journey through the concept of love changed you? You were clear on the fact that you experienced different perspectives on love but you didn't actually say whether or not you have come to accept love in your life. Have you?

I guess I have always had people ( particularly insecure people ) try to control me. Sure in my last life I had an Empire hunt me in an attempt to control me. My breaking the shackles of control is a recurrent theme in all of my lives yet when it happens with people who supposedly know me I wonder if they are stupid? Don't they know it won't work?

Yup your right, its easy to be brave on the internet. Personally I'm the same person online as I am in my real life. I don't have an image to uphold, I am responsible enough to respect people online as in real life, I ain't trying to manipulate people into seeing me a certain way. I'm just myself. It might not be that those people don't know any better Jaime, they may be too weak psychologically to be honest with themselves you know? Maybe they are young souls I dunno.
Hi. I'm sorry you had it that tough before but glad you pulled out of it. Good you have the strength to reclaim your rights and not let anyone control you : )Yes I have learned to be more kind to myself, accepting more love, but I have my moments of insecurity. I don't mind making a fool of myself and I can admit to being wrong, I don't beat myself up about it, so I think I am getting there. I was more shy and insecure before. I think I was born with a fear of dominant people messing with my life, why I did not know. Any one else ruling my life, I have less patience for it now than I think I use to have in my pl. Free will is so important. It seems some people have serious problems with just being equal to one another, being fair. Yet I think it is what we all want, desire. Then we are balanced.
Yes it could be that they play a role on the net, the people we were referring to earlier, but hopefully they grow, change and look back in shame, they are hurting themselves a well, even if they don't see it right now.
 
Hi Landsend.

I agree that the generations we are born into play a part in our 'script'. Indeed that's what I meant when I spoke to Jaime of current influences through our karma.

I had a traumatic childhood and during that time, although I stood apart from my peers, I wasn't thrown from my generation. I did have deeper insights that all but predicted my later adult experience in my writings but as I said to Tortoro my writings also made me realise that I was of my time.

I think trauma breaks a person and one must rebuild themselves. Although sometimes trauma can come from deeper insight I don't believe most trauma offers anything but torment, at least psychologically. Its generally in overcoming and dealing with the trauma that I believe the deeper insights come.

Its just the long route to adulthood really. To realise one is not so unique, that one is of their time. That one is not so special. In my experience its when a person has grappled with and come to terms with their past and who they are, when they have found their place in the world, then they are ready to elevate themselves and the openings come. Anything before that opening are mere glimpses IMO. Tortoro spoke of the souls need to grow earlier in the topic.

In my view trauma is a broken vase that needs repairing and breaking apart from ones generation is about becoming fully the person one was meant to be. Its a process not an event IMO.
 
I always have people getting out of their pram with me Jaime. Its the story of my life. I'm used to it.

Everyone has doubts Jaime, everyone feels insecure at some points in their lives. I think its part of being human. If you can laugh freely and reflect on yourself your on the right path IMO.

Why do you think having less patience now for being dominated than you had in your pl has occurred?

I know what you mean. Some people do have serious problems with being fair. We can't get political but one can see it in the current young adult generation. They may be just a vocal minority however, I dunno cos I'm middle aged and out of touch. :)

Your absolutely right. They are hurting themselves as well. One has to wonder if that's why they are so sensitive, because they are in a cycle of self abuse and they don't even know it. Food for thought.
 
I think trauma breaks a person and one must rebuild themselves. Although sometimes trauma can come from deeper insight I don't believe most trauma offers anything but torment, at least psychologically. Its generally in overcoming and dealing with the trauma that I believe the deeper insights come.
Wow, I remember the feelings of having to re-deal with this lifetime's course as I faced as a teenager while actually being in my early-thirties. These "problems" can occur within a lifetime as well as being spread out among several it seems.
They are hurting themselves as well.
This is better understood in another way if you realize that it might actually be the Former or Next "you" who you are interacting with!
 
I always have people getting out of their pram with me Jaime. Its the story of my life. I'm used to it.

Everyone has doubts Jaime, everyone feels insecure at some points in their lives. I think its part of being human. If you can laugh freely and reflect on yourself your on the right path IMO.

Why do you think having less patience now for being dominated than you had in your pl has occurred?

I know what you mean. Some people do have serious problems with being fair. We can't get political but one can see it in the current young adult generation. They may be just a vocal minority however, I dunno cos I'm middle aged and out of touch. :)

Your absolutely right. They are hurting themselves as well. One has to wonder if that's why they are so sensitive, because they are in a cycle of self abuse and they don't even know it. Food for thought.
Hi, thanks, yes. I think I have less patience now of dominance because of what happened in a past life. It made me really resentful of it. The two dominant people in this pl would lie to pl-me and create chaos in my life. I also learned that someone with a need to be dominant will never stop; it just wants more and more of it, and there was only so much diplomacy I could offer. I couldn't breath. I would have terrible fights with both. It was truly bad. In my own life dominant people and I have been known to have terrible fights too, at work even, ( and at home when growing up ) . I one time freely seek another work place because of this because I knew this other person would most likely never move, people tried to make me stay ( one even started crying when I said I quit which was so sweet, I'll never forget ). yes but sometimes it is wonderful to be middle aged :)
 
Hi Ken.

Yea. One thing about childhood trauma is that I've found it to be premonitory. Although my battle as a teenager was completely different to the battle I fought in my thirties my view on conflict, suffering etc was mirrored. I wrote stream of consciousness poetry as a teen that I thought at the time were flights of fancy based in a philosophical context. They weren't exactly my teen experiences but more an extrapolation of them into a more extensive realm. The glimpse I spoke to Landsend of.

Yet it turned out those flights of fancy actually seemed to have been projecting into my future. They spoke to my destiny and, in a way my, first battle as a teenager was a preparation for what would come in my thirties.

That's why I don't believe we completely break from our generations but we do mature IMO. What I conceived in writing in my teens I had left behind in my twenties. I couldn't conceive of them as a young adult. Yet once I became a fully mature adult I was ready to grapple with outside forces in a way that was internalised as a teen.

Being as overly sensitive as I was as a young adult I wasn't ready to mature. That came with time. Yet I am still learning. One does not suddenly break from themselves and learn it all IMO. Teenagers and sometimes young adults at times like to think that they know it all but they don't. They are simply one link in a generational chain, one phase in a cycle, on the earlier parts of their journey.

I believe its when one realises this that true adulthood comes. As I said I ain't so special.

So are you saying doing wrong in your current life is helping to create the circumstances of ones next life Ken?
 
Hi Jaime.

I believe that individuals that need to dominate and control are deeply insecure people. I'm not however so I see right through their actions. I won't yield to broken people. One is setting themselves up for an unhealthy relationship doing that.

I will stand my ground against them however. Yet I find, like the ban I got on the other site on Monday, they tend to scuttle off into the shadows when confronted. They can't debate me like an adult so as I said they cover their ears and say "I'm not listening."

I'm delighted I got a ban for two reasons. Firstly because as soon as I realised these people were making excuses, airing private conversations and lying I realised they were disrespecting their own forum guidelines thus that forum wasn't for me. So I stood my ground and defended my points. Which leads to the second reason. They had no defense for their actions, they couldn't control me, they couldn't be adult with me, all they could do was shut me up. To me that proved my point that I was right all along. They offered little defense because they had none. One of then tried to defend themselves but couldn't in the face of logic thus the ban. Then the other one cowered in and implied I was being abusive in pm which was an outright lie because I hadn't spoken to them in pm that day.

That's mediocre and childish behaviour to me you know?
 
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