Junior Shares His Desires to Live in a Different Era

After reading the Great Gatsby in English class this past month, I realized something: I don’t belong here. I shouldn’t be living in this day and age. I’m just not cut out for life in the modern world.
No, I’m not a Luddite. I don’t fear that machines controlled by Skynet will someday take over the world and annihilate humanity. I just want to go back to a time much simpler than this—a time known as the Jazz Age.

And no, I’m not condoning alcoholism. It isn’t the drunkenness that I admire. It’s the hedonistic attitude that the decade embodies. The people of the twenties took the phrase “all good things in moderation” and said “the hell with that crap!” And they decided to live life to the fullest. To put it plainly and simply, that generation had more fun.

The technologies of today have really advanced leaps and bounds from those of the 1920s, and these advancements pose a threat to our enjoyment of life. They give us too many choices to make. Take for example our choice of vices for people to indulge themselves in. Today there are a whole host of recreational drugs that weren’t around back in the twenties. Every day it seems, people are finding new things to get high off of. With so many choices, many end up feeling lost when it comes time to choose which vice is right for them, when it comes time to escape the woes of their monotonous lives. People may become preoccupied with the decision making process, and instead of escaping them, people end up making the headache of our daily lives even worse.

Back in the twenties though, it was easier. Back then people didn’t have to think through all their choices—because they didn’t have any. If someone wanted to indulge in unhealthy behavior, they hadn’t any choice but to pour themselves a deep glass of whiskey and drink their troubles away. With less time deliberating on every decision, they had more time to have fun.

Now that it had to be bootlegged, alcohol was more expensive than ever, but it didn’t matter to the Americans of the Lost Generation, because they had money to burn. Which brings me to my next point: people back in the twenties knew that there are in fact a few material things that are worth the money. Examples include flying first class, a nice watch, or in the case of the flappers, good liquor.
On the other hand, today all around me, people are obsessing over saving on everything, sacrificing a pleasurable lifestyle. These people buy generic groceries, with generic tastes, and it’s no wonder that their lives follow suit, and are completely generic. They become so obsessed with whether they need something or not, whether it might be possible to get by with an inferior product, that they completely ignore how much they want it. Whether it’s a $5 Frappuccino from Starbucks, or a $250,000 Lamborghini, there are indeed things in this world that bring joy to those that who purchase them.
Then there are those who are occupied with living as healthy of a life as possible. Some call this living their “best life.” But, it doesn’t seem like one to me. My best life is the most pleasurable one. I don’t care if eating more than the prescribed six ounces of red meat a week is going to shorten my life a little. I’d rather have a happy short life, than a long one where all I ate was celery sticks and all I drank was water.

Are these things needed? No, but they make one’s life much more enjoyable.

Of course, the government tried to control them. They said that this behavior was “taking a toll on society,” and passed Prohibition. But, the stubborn population of flappers and their male counterparts didn’t let Uncle Sam rain on their parade. Instead they drank more than they had ever drunk before. They opened up speakeasies and installed hidden doorways in their homes that lead to their own fully stocked bars.

This is the final thing that made life in the twenties so admirable. They didn’t let the government push them around. They asked themselves how the government could possibly know what was best for their own health. They weren’t hurting anybody. So, they just ignored the law.

Furthermore, despite their drunkenness, the twenties were a time of economic prosperity. Well, maybe not so much, I believe they called that wake up call the Great Depression. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the stock market didn’t crash until late 1929–that’s nearly ten years of perceived prosperity. And it really is all about perception, isn’t it? At least that’s what they’re teaching us International Baccalaureate candidates in Theory of Knowledge.

Imagine what it must have felt like for the guy that went through the twenties eating cabbage once the Great Depression set in. I bet that the party-goers were pretty happy that they had spent all their savings on booze instead of letting it sit in the bank.

Our generation could learn a lot from the flappers. We need to stop debating about how many calories are in each cube of sugar and instead start dumping the whole jar into our coffee. At least that’s the life I want to lead—I guess I was just born in the wrong decade.

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Other staffers share their thoughts on which decades would be best to live in.

Kat Buchanan: 1910s
Why the 1910s? They’ve been forgotten, outshone by their decadent and more inviting neighboring decades. Take me back a century to an even simpler time than that of the 2k10 era, where my Facebook status doesn’t need to be constantly updated and the brand of my jeans isn’t scrutinized by onlooking peers.

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Kennedy Burgess: 1940s
Yes, the 1940s was a time of the second World War and the Great Depression, but there were great things that came out of this decade. For one, women were being looked at as strong forces in the workplace. I could only hope to meet someone as charming as Ryan Gosling’s character in the “Notebook” and express our mutual love for swing music.

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Raina Weinberg: 1960s
I can’t think of a better time to live in than the 1960s. It would undoubtably be easier to own my dream car, a yellow VW bus, back then than it would now. I would drive my bus up to Woodstock, New York to catch a piece musical history. Perhaps I would take up residence in Venice beach to “bump into” Jim Morrison.