I know that this is a horrid generalization, but contri-butionally speaking, our generation sucks.What, of substance, have we contributed to pop culture? Beyond Britney Spears, boy bands, and Beanie Babies, I just don’t know. While tragic, circumstances are understandable.

Our generation, “generation Y,” has lived a pretty cushy life until now. We haven’t known hunger (that’s not self imposed). We have had no depression, no war. Blatant segregation and racism, at least on the surface, aren’t as tolerated. Until now, we have been ignorant of tremendous collective suffering.

Tremendous collective suffering is awful and I don’t wish it on anyone. However, compare our generation to that of our parents.

They had the Kennedy assassination. They had the hey-day of the civil rights movement. They had Watergate and Viet Nam. They also had CSNY, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Andy Warhol, Hunter S. Thompson, and the like, documenting all of that frustration.

In our day, there have been some internal violent outbreaks, and some lady spilled coffee on her lap at McDonald’s.

Our pop music accordingly is about internal, personal suffering—it’s about the sting of knowing that we were all on some basic level going to go to class, but then you know, things happen. It’s about the turmoil of hurting yet anther lover. Oops.

I don’t mean to glorify the sixties but as my suite-mate Kate Hardy put it, “the music was about something then. Now it’s just about tits and *ss.”

But here we are today, each and every one of us, victims of a massive terrorist attack. We are tasting a bit of the Holy Sh*t Pie our parents munched on when they were our age. Finally, we have something of substance to reflect on, to document.

This is our time—our revolution. It would be an insult to us and to the event to wait around for a Willie Nelson and Michael Jackson charity album.

Undoubtedly, what happened on Sept. 11 is beyond tragic. But this is our opportunity to connect as a generation and try to make sense of what we are all feeling (very New Age I know, sorry).

This is a very electric time in our lives. We can either channel that energy into something creative, or we can sit and fry.