Saving the World!

It came about in this way.

During the children's revolt of the sixties and the seventies, I was just old enough to understand what these kids had in mind--they meant to turn the world upside down -- just young enough to believe that they might actually succeed. It's true. Every morning when I opened my eyes, I expected to see that the new era had begun, that the sky was a brighter blue and the grass a brighter green. I expected to hear laughter in the air to see people dancing in the street, not just kids -- everyone! I won't apologize for my naivete; you only have to listen to the songs that I wasn't alone.

Then one day when I was in the mid teens I woke up and realized that the new era was never going to begin. The revolt hadn't been put down, it had just dwindled away into a fashion statement. Can I have been the only person in the world who was disillusioned by this? Bewildered by this? It seemed so. Everyone else seemed to be able to pass it off with a cynical grin that said, "Well, what did you really expect? There's never been any more than this and never will be anymore than this. Nobody's out to save the world, because nobody gives a damn about the world, that was just a bunch of goofy kids talking. Get a job, make some money, work till you're sixty, then move to Florida and die"

- Daniel Quinn (Ishmael)