Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

In a nutshell, there are two "active" generations, each about 20-25 years apart. Then there are two sort of transitional or "lost" generations, also 20-25 years apart. Things begin with an "awakening" generation, sort of like the Baby Boomers, who decide that everything is morally wrong, and tear down institutions.

It takes about 40-50 years for the effects of that to happen, after which comes a "crisis" generation. They have to deal with the collapse in social structure, often with large-scale wars. The cycle of war is so predictable as to have been well-studied.

The "in between" generations are those that follow the Awakening and the Crisis. Life is in transition at those two points, leading to a sort of nomadic or wandering framework.

One of my favorite anecdotes comes from Nancy Friday, in one of her books about women and life. She went to visit a friend of hers for Thanksgiving, I think it was. They would be having a ham for dinner.

Putting together the ham, her friend sawed off about 3 inches of bone at the narrow end. Just out of curiosity, Friday asked how come? Her friend didn`t know: They just always did it that way. But her mother was there, and so she asked her mother.

The mother said that`s just the way she always did it. Fortunately, the grandmother happened also to be there. So they asked her. It turned out that when her grandmother first was married at about 18, she and her husband were very poor. They barely had enough to eat, and only one or two basic pots and pans.

The pan they had was only large enough to handle so much of a ham, which they would have for traditional holidays. Rather than have it stick over the end and drop fat into the oven, the grandmother routinely chopped off about 3 inches of the thin end.

Each generation experiences something in their formative years, which affects the way they live in their prime, adult years. They then raise their children based on their own experience. So if there was a lot of discipline, they raise children with a lot of discipline. However; the children get angry and revolt against that discipline.

Those children grow up "anti" discipline, and so raise their children with little or no discipline. Those children, now two generations, feel lost and directionless. They search for answers, finding discipline. So they raise their children with lots of discipline.

See how the cycle repeats, naturally, based on plain old human nature. Right now, we`re heading into a Crisis generational turning. There`ll be a return to consolidated institutions, with the government told to take charge of everything. It`ll come to a war, major and all-engaging, out of which will come heroes, like the WWII generation. They`ll re-establish institutions and building, and so the cycle continues.

The generation that came after the Baby Boomers, the so-called Gen-Xers, were a transition generation, not feeling connected to the Boomers, but also not really connected to the Gen-Y or 13ers. However, those in the Gen-Y group, now entering primary adulthood, have a consolidated sense of generational belonging.