So, where are you going on vacation this year?
Every year, right on cue, that question arrives. More punctual than a nightly cron job email, more predictable than a security report on OpenBSD. And, like every year, I give the same answer. But not without thinking it over first.
There was an entire generation, at least in Italy, that benefited from a period of extreme, surreal prosperity. So surreal, in fact, that it eventually imploded on itself. Of course, not all of them. Many worked hard and with foresight. But I'm talking about the system that allowed and encouraged these dynamics, a system that created a fairytale-like expectation of eternal growth and well-being.
I'm talking about the "Boomers", the generation between 60 and 80 years old. They were born after the Second World War into a society that was poor and devastated but in constant growth. They benefited from reckless policies that assumed constant, infinite growth in both GDP and population. They enjoyed rights and privileges that we can only dream of today, but which, for many of them, might as well still exist.
Salaries were good, and interest rates on savings were so high that in just a few years, you could afford things that are completely unthinkable now. I think of my grandfather, a baker (an employee, not the owner), who in a handful of years managed to buy both his main home and a small house by the sea. He was careful with his money, but not obsessively so, and managed it well. Double-digit interest rates on savings, relatively low prices. Today, someone in his same position couldn't even dream of affording a decent rent. My grandfather was savvy, and he was able to benefit from an era of growth and economic optimism.
My next-door neighbor? She retired at 38 (and that's not even one of the worst examples), having worked for only 3 years. She paid to have her university years count toward her pension, had five (or six, I don't remember) children, and took every possible leave she was entitled to, including for her kids. She's almost 80 now and has been enjoying her pension for 41 years—and who knows for how many more. An unsustainable system, but back then, the thinking was that we'd be numerous and all rich. A policy that was perhaps too optimistic, perhaps short-sighted - or perhaps, simply, indifferent to the consequences of its decisions. And this is the world whose crumbling foundations we, the forty-somethings of today, have inherited. Because the debts incurred back then are being paid by us today, diminishing our purchasing power and our quality of life.
Indeed, today we live in a society where adult children, under the same conditions, are poorer than their parents. We have fewer services, less protection, and fewer opportunities for growth. A worrying international situation, a pandemic not entirely behind us (at least economically), and a political landscape that has completely changed. Many of them, thankfully, understand this - they realize they lived most of their lives in a society that, yes, had its problems but was optimistic, growing, and full of opportunities. They are worried about the future and, where possible, they try to help (not just financially, but even morally) the generations that follow.
Others, however, seem to remain entrenched in their golden world. In their 1970s or '80s convictions, in their general mindset, in their social checklist where, to be "good", you have to achieve a series of goals. Goals that might have been valid back then (though, in my opinion, often so loaded with hypocrisy as to be almost disgusting with today's hindsight) but are now, for many, nearly unreachable. But they don't get it, and they look upon the younger generations almost with disdain, seeing them as incapable (in their words) of matching their achievements.
I look at the new generations with affection. I think about how I, a forty-five-year-old, experienced the beauty of Europe's falling borders, the golden age of low-cost air travel, that euphoria of feeling like citizens of the world. Of a world, or at least a Europe, that was becoming closer, more accessible. Wonderful. For the new generations, the world is already different: the specter of new wars on the horizon (and not so far away), of internal societal problems mismanaged by short-sighted politics that, over time, are becoming true social blights. Take healthcare, for example. Italy has always had (and in many parts of the country, still has) a first-rate healthcare system. But things have become much more complex, waiting times are getting longer, hospitals are closing. Yes, closing: because in those golden years, for electoral reasons, "full-service" hospitals were opened in every town and village - because it all brought jobs and votes. Many, in those years, believed that the growth of bureaucracy and public facilities, at least in certain areas, was a way to create jobs and win votes. Today, those retiring public servants are not being replaced - but the bureaucracy is still there, holding back development.
The new generations see an uncertain, bleaker world with very few certainties. They will adapt - the young are brilliant at that - but it's not a good thing.
Returning to the opening question, my answer is always the same: "Nowhere. Or maybe a few days somewhere. The servers don't stop, and frankly, I'd go into withdrawal without being able to connect to them. We'll take a few interesting day trips, here and there, based on the time we have." My answer is a summary of our times: the 'summer-long holiday' is a conceptual luxury, even before it's a financial one. It's an answer that merges my professional reality with a broader economic truth: a 'villeggiatura' (a prolonged seasonal vacation, traditionally involving relocating from the city for weeks or months) as they understand it - weeks on end - would impact a modern family's budget so substantially as to be virtually unsustainable. But for the person asking, it's almost incomprehensible. Their expression remains the same: that of someone who has always believed that in summer, everyone goes on holiday - or rather, on villeggiatura - for at least a month. Because that's how it worked in the '80s: everything shut down, especially in August, and entire families would relocate for weeks to their vacation spots. They still think the world is like that, that it hasn't changed, except when I point out that these days, only certain privileged retirees can afford to do that (because many of them have pensions so high we can only dream of them, they stopped working so young they can enjoy life for many years, and they have enough financial resources to afford a month-long vacation that is prohibitive for younger people today) - a fact confirmed by a quick look at the average age of people in these places.
But, as punctual as a TV segment on what to do during a summer heatwave, the same question returns the following year: "So, where are you going on vacation this year?"