I'm not bragging about the times I lived through. I'm simply trying to convey what it felt like to live through that age, and the fact that there really was something special about it. Yet if I were to try to unpack these times and point out something in particular that was extraordinary, I don't know if I could. What I'd find if I did such a dissection would be these: the momentum and energy of the times, the tremendous spark of promise. More than anything else, the feeling of inevitable irritation like when you look through the wrong end of a telescope. Heroism and villainy, ecstasy and disillusionment, martyrdom and betrayal...Any age has all these. The present does, and so will the future. But in Our Age (to use an exaggerated term) these were more colorful, and you could actually grasp them. They were literally lined up on a shelf, right before our very eyes.
A Folklore for my Generation: A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism, Haruki Murakami