The Alpha

While you were busy with your life, getting married, starting and giving up on a new diet, waiting for your computer to restart, buying new shoes, listening to your wife and surviving a biological attack, you totally missed the fact that the Generational Clock has recently restarted!  What clock, you ask?!  Well, it’s a term I created for something that happens only once in a thousand years (give or take a thousand), and you were too busy watching Netflix to witness it! 

Initially coined by the great American lesbian (also a pretty good writer) Gertrude Stein, the Generational Clock included The Lost Generation, The Silent one, the Baby Boomers and even the Millennials.  Generation X was simply insane and caused nothing but trouble, however, starting with Generation Z things got rather exciting, and that takes us to my personal favorite & the best of them all – today’s Generation Alpha!  

Alphas…. These youngsters are really something!  We are talking about kids that only know the world through their iPads and Siri, kids that never go out, children that hardly know how to speak, except via text messages.  If you ask them about war, they will probably look up quotes from the history websites, or find a World War II movie on YouTube.  Six months ago, if you asked them to describe love, they would have needed the help from Google or Alexa.  But let me tell you – this Alpha Generation is unique, strong-minded and will tower over many generations that preceded them.  And the simple reason for that is because they were tested and learned how to be strong early in life.

I don’t care what anyone says, but a real loss can only happen when you love and value something more than yourself.  These kids suddenly found themselves in the midst of the craziest tragedy this country has ever known; crisis that reshaped everything and everyone, taking away more lives than 9/11 and the Vietnam War combined.  Alphas suddenly saw real fear on their parents’ faces, were forced to put masks on their own and witnessed death right outside their doors.  These kids may not completely understand why they have to stand 6 feet away from others, but they silently know that they must.  Their world stopped being a video game, and they were forced to grow up, display strength and develop respect, resilience and hope – something that will define them for the rest of their lives.