My parents (and their parents) world seemed more stable, somewhat knowable. (It probably wasn’t.) Even if your situation was low agency, if you did what you were supposed to (the life script) long enough, then things probably ended up alright. Scarcity before, abundance later.

My generation (millennial or X) and the ones adjacent came along and accelerated things. Stability declined as dynamism and knowability were within easier grasp, yielding greater individual agency. But now change was the only constant. More folks did what they wanted to and got by. But playing the life script, doing what you were supposed to do, was still pretty effective.

Jury’s out whether that will collapse just as these generations retire.

The next generation are going to change the balance too. What we gave them, in terms of technology and culture and politics and the environment, could make for wild, weird times. I don’t think we should besmirch them too much, if possible, for what they do with it. If anything, we should find harmony with how they played the hand we dealt.