Take the wrong train please

As with all generations, mine has got beyond the point it's fun to watch. We got mainstream, important, obvious and matter of fact. We are all starch and little flavour. We have ties and suits and cars and families but we lost a bit the crazy sparkle. I obviously exaggerate but my point is that we are past that point were we had so much fun naturally and simply doing things we like. Watching these youngsters doing their thing in Gare de Midi I was taken over by both a feeling of nostalgia and envy. Of course we still have fun. I love seeing my friends and I bet most of my generation still does that regularly. What we have stopped having is that joint passion for something irrelevant but highly enjoyable that bounds people so strongly that the group is immediately identifiable. We may fight common causes, we share responsibilities, jobs etc. but we do not identify. We do all that super important stuff grownups do. We have so little time to enjoy the things we do together. We get our kicks with professional or personal success but there is so little left of that gang or tribe communal happiness we once had. I find it particularly difficult to understand what exactly is that we lost in the process of adapting to a full adult life as personally I shared few moments with any tribe. At best I was part of the fringe of various joint interest groups without ever being totally absorbed or committed. The important was to be there and share. Today is far more superficial. The dating game, the social scene and all the other pre set behaviours keep us moving in the social environment clustering based on taste, shared interests or circumstances but having comparatively little group solidarity and identity. Our train is going faster and faster we stopped taking the time of enjoying the stops. The stations are passages for us, places we go to get somewerelse and we could not see in them anything different. They cannot be meeting points, battle grounds, or acting stages they are JUST stations. Boring, dull and utterly functional regardless if the train is on time. Much the same I feel that we have become functional, even those of us that are truly disfunctional, we have a role and a place and we cannot but take the train and follow the directions on the ticket. Every once in a while we should take the wrong train and end up in a station that we just enjoy.