Today is both Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday. These two important occasions remind us that love, human love, may start from nothing and to nothing it may likewise return. But divine love makes all things possible. Today also marks the first day of what we call "Cuaresma," the season of Lent. Thus, our message from above is that man, though nothing, is being loved by Him who has everything. And that His love is so great that He gives His only son who is destined to offer His life to men who are only dust and are bound to return to dust. It is thus important that we reflect on how men today express their love, their human love to the object of their affection. My answer is that the manner of expressing love depends on the generation to which the human lover belongs.
The Millennials are very fast, furious, and very aggressive with a dizzying sense of urgency, and with some degree of pragmatism and calculated detachment. They view the world as VUCA; volatile, unpredictable, complicated, and ambiguous. Thus, they move fast and even recklessly. The Baby Boomers are sentimental fools, incurably romantic, quite slow, and very focused, even fixated on the one and only object of their desires and affections. The Millennials are impatient and are committed to the proposition "walang forever." They are like butterflies who have many alternative blossoms to sip nectar from. The Baby Boomers are unequivocably monogamous and have an unexplained fixation to stick to one and die for her. They can even commit suicide in the name of love, in the style of Romeo and Juliet. The Millennials would consider that unadulterated stupidity.
The Baby Boomers would even do a "harana" or write romantic poems and send flowers, blooms and blossoms of red, red roses with chocolates. The Millennials would rather give the beloved an envelope of gift certificates or even cash, appearing to be more practical, while Baby Boomers are too idealistic for their own good. Millenials who are in love prefer Valentine's parties with a lot of wine, smoking, drugs, women, men, and noise pretending to be music. Baby Boomers would rather have candle-lit dinner with champagne and violin, and even harp or saxophone to the music of Mat Monroe and Shirley Bassey. Baby Boomers are loyal, faithful, patient, as St. Paul describes love in his letter to the Corinthians.
Millennials can easily move on. They lose one beloved today, they can find another or even more tomorrow. They do not believe in long courtships, they can easily enter into relationships and marriage and then give it away with no serious equivocation. The Baby Boomers believe in "till death do us part" and "in sickness and in health" as well as "for richer or for poorer." The Millennials believe in "till debt do us part." To the Baby Boomers, love, romance and marriages are only for man and women. To the Millennials, gender does not matter.
But I have news for you. My three sons are all Millennials but their styles are more Baby Boomers. It is not a matter of age but a matter of paradigm, a matter of perspectives and styles. Happy Valentines to all Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X and Gen Y. Carpe diem. Sieze the day.