I attended a Greens fundraising night for local would-be MPs on the weekend.
It was a lot of fun and the shared pot-luck dinner was sumptuous and belt-stretching; perhaps because they deeply appreciate the bounty, Greens know how to eat well.
But the wife and I were very much the average age; certainly there were few non-greys among the diners.
Okay, maybe stumping up a few bucks for an evening of polite socialising with like-minded individuals isn't a big drawcard for the under-40s, but for me it was symptomatic of the times: the ex-flower power boomers left bewailing the common lot while their sons and daughters chase ersatz nirvana in a corporate makeover.
Explain how you like - the natural left-right generational swing, rebellion against parental attitudes, the corrupting allure of glamour and bling - it still makes no sense. It's not as if the signs of crisis aren't many and obvious.
So how can they be ignored by those who will inherit this mess?
Especially when the young are supposed to be the rebels of the day, with the fire and energy of ideals to fuel them.
But no; it's left to us fading stalwarts of the falsely-labelled "me" generation to try to re-balance the world.
Well, here's a message for you greedy apathetic youngsters: if you think we're going to take the blame for the manure the globe's being dipped in, you've got another think coming.
Shrugging off your lack of action by loading guilt on someone else is not a righteous cause - it's egotistical masturbation.
Worse, if you recognise the world's problems are too large and complex for an individual to address and think that excuses you from even trying, then you really are the pathetic losers you mistakenly think your parents to be.
All right. There we go.
You don't have to wear a blue suit to be a yuff-basher, eh?
Though unlike Key & Co who are hell-bent on ensuring anyone under 18 and less than swanningly-rich is designed-by-government trash, I'm talking about the late-20 and 30-somethings who are supposed to have a few clues - courtesy of our then-formidable education system.
The fact that's being dismembered just as their kids are starting to go through it and they're barely blinking an eye reinforces how disconnected the so-called X and Y generations are.
All style, no substance whatsoever. No wonder they vote National.
Am I trying to get a rise here? You betcha.
Guarantee it won't happen, though, because unfortunately what I just wrote is true.
As for the real youth, it will not surprise if they turn out to be more violent and unruly than anything the "era of love" produced.
With almost a third of them unemployed and not even a sniff of a plan for a viable future taking shape, the only reason they're not rioting as they are in Britain is lack of critical mass.
That, and the fact that for all its increasingly-obvious flaws, New Zealand remains an inherently privileged and precious place to be. Which fosters an acceptance of low standards disproportionate to political reality.
That's why it's so damned hard to politicise Kiwis. We are all, rightly, grateful to be here; so we let our leaders get away with dysfunctional policies that in other countries have hundreds of thousands causing mayhem in the streets.
Instead, here, they cause it by staying home and doing nothing.
That's the right of it.
* Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
