5 a.m.

I read somewhere that population scientists consider a generation to be 25 years - 100 years of age separate four generations. That means that my hundred year old great grandmother is at least 3 generations away from me.

It sure doesn't feel like my dad is 2 away or my mom is 1. We are all coetaneous.

Yet it's the simple things that give it away. A former student of mine told me yesterday that sophomores in high school today had never heard of backstreet boys or the spice girls. Such classical landmarks in the life of every single college student enrolled in the pop western world today are a thing of legend to the youngsters of today.

So it's 5 am (really 2pm here) in Vladivostok and I'm ever nearer to the mature and ripe age of whenever we grow up.

It's strange that the adults of yesterday always told us that the future belonged to our generation. Well our generation is now and the future is still in the future - we're like the horse chasing the carrot hanging from the carriage driver's fishing stick. The distance between point A and B never changes locally though it moves across the world universally.

I'm not trying to be deep. I'm going for nerdy.

So bear with me as I use Swarley's famous words and suit up.

I hope that the generations to come appreciate Charles Aznavour, the original Ocean's 11 and Oscar Wilde's rant on how all art is useless - the prologue to arguably one of his landmark works. I hope they grow up with landmark art that doesn't involve a fraternal communion of Disneyland and network TV - maybe that's snobbish.

Apathy is growing everywhere but the most dangerous places. Long gone are the days where generations would movilize around the world over an idea or a picture. Long gone are the days where generations would see leaders rise to the height of ideal only to be toppled over by their own sense of omnipotence - I'm talking about Elvis and Cobain. Long gone are the days where generations care about anything other than their localized existence; the bubble.

Don't give me the story of award winning NPOs and NGOs rising around the world along with grass-root organizations and sustainable development students volunteering at this or that group with the words "Without Borders" attached to their back. Props on the street cred.

Talk to me about an individual looking to change the world for good in one grand sweep.

Where's Ender when you need him?