Nowadays my livelihood involves addressing the generations that have been called and labeled pejoratively as Millennials. I do not personally know many young men and women who are pigeon-holed as such; a few years ago I knew more (although that was in India). Before I start to address the Millennial reader directly, in a casual way, there are a few contextualizing points to make.
I would say that I understand Millennials’ essential concerns, temperaments, skepticism, life strategies, and even their general or generational suffering. The justification I have for claiming to understand (even without much interpersonal experience with them) stems from the similarity of my own sensibilities and upbringing with theirs – in fact I would claim to be a proto-Millennial more than a GenXer. So, it is our generational difficulties that we’re confronting.
Millennials literally are the children of my own generation, after all; and yet I am unmarried and childless (as are most Millennials). Perhaps this explains feeling attraction to, and overall concern for, our society’s newest adults: I feel the impulse to help them navigate this absurd world.
But not only to navigate it, I want to aid young adults in mastering their own paths with existential confidence despite the unfairness and turbulence of our current history. That means gaining power physically, mentally, financially, and even politically – in order to maximize our philosophical experiences (together and alone). Ultimately the goal is understanding and wisdom, which must culminate in a state of secular, unconditional, universal Love.
The youngest adults today, like myself over the past couple decades, have had a rough ride. Nevertheless it is possible for us to transmute those socio-cultural traumas into self-defined ‘success’: this is the first piece of intelligence I want to share with you, my dear ‘Millennials’.
The Philosophical Intelligence Agency 