Last night as we finished our pre-bed ritual of Wordle, Max said, 'Appa, did you know that you would be called a Xenial? You belong to a generation that grew up without the internet but became its first users. And then there is another group between Millennials and Gen Z called Zillenials.'
"No, I didn't know that," I replied.
As he decided to read a chapter or two on his Kindle before he fell asleep, I made my way to the bed and looked it up. He was right! I can be termed a Xennial (with a double n).
That led me down a path of reminiscence.
The best moments of my childhood coincided with the twilight of a world before the internet; I remember clearly that such a time existed, and it had its own unique benefits.
I thought... Of friends who drifted away from me and ones I drifted away from. Of faded memories of playing football and cricket on streets, dried lakebeds, and unoccupied plots of land. Of places, now changed beyond recognition, once familiar, now strange. The past is indeed a foreign land and its customs bizarre1.
Later, after I've tucked Max in and the house has settled into quiet, I return to Joseph Jebelli's The Brain at Rest. Reading about boredom as a neurological necessity, about how the unstimulated brain actually works harder, creates new connections, solves problems we didn't know we had—I think about those long afternoons of my childhood. The ones that felt endless, oppressive even. Hours spent staring at ceilings, wandering empty lots, waiting for something, anything, to happen. What seemed like emptiness was actually my brain at work. I wonder what Max's brain does in those moments between stimulation, if such moments even exist for him anymore. He hates being bored.
🎶 Background music whilst writing: Music to write Faster & Better (YouTube)
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The opening line of L. P. Hartley’s novel, The Go-Between ↩
