Lost Places

The more I research the new global generation and its struggle for the future, the clearer it becomes to me every day how much we Millennials, in contrast, are the generation of decay. A childhood that, at least in the global West, was reasonably well-ordered, even stable and secure, has been contrasted, at the latest since September 11, 2001, by an experience of crisis that has lasted twenty years and is still coming to a head today.

This explains a lot: our omnipresent need for security, the return of smugness, the revival of religion, marriage and family - we strive for everything that promises us stability. The complete loss of control, the rendezvous with high-globalization produces a longing for peace and order that has not existed for a long time. Nostalgia and retromanticism are the most obvious reaction of our insecure soul. Whether it's an old apartment or a swing dance class, hipster beards or a vintage look - consciously or unconsciously, we seek our salvation in the identities of the past.

But alongside this compensatory nostalgia, a deep-seated melancholy also emerges time and again. Abandoned places, dilapidated houses and factories attract us magically - "Ruinenlust" is the English term for this phenomenon, the crumbling sites are like a mirror of our inner turmoil. As if our subconscious relives the loss of our own security with every ruin, with every lost place. As if the grim, the gone wild, the overgrown helps us process our Millennial trauma.

This is nothing entirely new. In almost every century, there have always been breakdowns of order and societal collapse. At the end of the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Classical period, and now at the end of the Modern era - and each time, exoticizing and historicizing nostalgias spring from these crises, to the point of fantastically grotesque melancholy. This dark romanticism has a tradition, and it is precisely for this reason that we should be aware of the dangers of such nihilism. We are not the first generation of decay, nor would we be the first to get lost in it.

For the moment the decayed places give us an indescribable feeling, I myself am always fascinated how much lost places can grab me. But we should not fall prey to the illusion that the past can be restored. The memory of decay is valuable, as long as it does not paralyze us or seduce us into believing that any lost places, lost times - and thus lost security - can be retrieved. If we become prisoners of our nostalgia, then we remain in yesterday and won't get our act together.

Everything comes to a head, today at the end point of the industrial order mankind has devastated the climate system, chaos breaks out everywhere. The hope, the rescue from this dramatic crisis cannot be drawn from the past, because it is responsible for the today. Security can only be found in the future, in radical change. And that takes us back to the beginning: we melancholic Millennials must join the global generation's struggle for the future before it's too late. Otherwise, in a few years and decades, there will only be abandoned sites and lost places.