Scars

My generation, the last of the generations of small boys who played with toy guns, were luckier than we knew. We didn't have a war waiting for us when we grew up. There were no Germans or Japanese for us to fight.

Our wives, that's who we fought with, this generation of men blessed with peace. And the divorce courts, that's where we fought our own grubby little wars.

I had seen the scars on my father's body enough times to know that war was not a John Wayne movie. But the men who survived - and who came home in more or less one piece - found someone to love for a lifetime. Which was better? War and a perfect love? Or peace and love which came in instalments of five, six or seven years? Who was really the lucky man? My father or me?

(a fragment from "Man and Boy" by Tony Parsons)

Did he notice that too? Who else can see it? (...) Right, that's what I thought. Do you represent the generation of seemingly happy people who wage war against no one but themselves? Are you one of the wimps, cowards or cold fish? To make it easier, ask yourself some additional questions:

• Do you happen to make friends with your computer, TV set or other comforts of the modern life more than with human beings?
• Do you often bite other people's head off for no specific reason?
• Do you find people untrustworthy and believe them hardly ever?
• Are you sometimes fascinated by something and then disappointed or bored with no reason whatsoever?
• Do you fall in and out of love as if it meant nothing and was just another version of Sims game?
• Do you often happen to be tired?
• Are you lazy, mean, unwilling to do a favour or a pleasure?
• Are you scanty of nice words?
• Have you lost faith? Or do you no longer practise it?
• Do you catch a cold easily? Do you suffer from illnesses?
• Do you waste time or money?
• Do you tend to compete with others and be envious?
• Do you tend to complicate your life?
• Do you no longer believe that sexual intercourse can be pure and beautiful?
• Would you rather have a cat than a baby?

If  you answered yes to most questions, welcome my friend to The World of the New Generation. Surely, you may be an overjoyed and healthy man, even nowadays. But remember, if you can't handle the more-technology-less-devotion world properly, scars is what you're going to get. And you won't get any medals for that since they will not be a result of your passionate fight for the country but a fierce battle againts other people and yourself. Hope not to get many scars myself.