Sunday, April 18, 2021

What was it like living in the 1950s through the 1970s?

In some ways it compares to 2000 to the present in the amount of chaos we all endured but not as bad as World War II and not as bad as the Coronavirus era. I think you have to compare the Coronavirus era to World War II because that is the only thing that comes close to this that I can think of in the last 100 years or so.

But, the 1950s I suppose it depended upon what age you were going through the 1950s. Most adults were emotionally compromised then from the Great Depression and World War II and all the deaths and maimings.

So, you could say the whole world was maimed by the Great Depression and World War II and the children like myself born during and after World war II were left to pick up the pieces of people left from all that chaos. So, the salvation of people who had survived the 1930s to 1945 were the Baby Boomers like myself. Children tend to heal people a lot but even the children had to survive all the maimed people from World war II and before which we all tried to do as much as we could as children.

So, I grew up watching movies of people dying in World War II and thinking that I would die as a soldier or pilot or sailor in the next war because world war I was only 20 years before World War II. 

But, somehow ways have now been found to prevent hot wars (except for the Cold War) from 1945 until around 1990 when that ended which also killed around 100 million people worldwide.

Living was more paradoxical in the 1950s through the 1970s in that there were these extremes. You could be incredibly happy or incredibly sad and often you were experiencing both at the same time.

I find the Coronavirus era can be like this too. For example, my wife and family are lucky to have a home that we could retreat to from the coronavirus that we have lived in since 1999 when her mother passed away on the coast of California. So, there is this paradoxical feeling that you had from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1980s when things finally settled down a little and got more sane until 9-11. 

The only healing times since World War II were likely from around 1980 to 2001 in my experience. And there is a sense of healing now that Trump is gone too now that everyone is getting vaccinated.

The U.S. likely is going to mobilize it's economic engine to help save the world now first with the vaccines and then economically. This is what appears to be going on now and likely will continue until 2025 or 2030.

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