Back in the day when The Legend of Zelda first came out, I played that game for 2 weeks straight until I beat it. It was an amazing game filled with puzzles, mazes, dungeons and secret passageways. The first game was so iconic that it was the first Nintendo Game that came with a battery pack so you could save your game. It was also the first cartridge that was a different color than the rest of the games. Instead of grey it was gold. To this day, many of the Legend of Zelda games are the greatest of all time, especially for each of their platforms.

The running joke of the game is that the title of the game was the Princess that the hero would save, not the hero that did the saving. The name of the hero was Link, which many people didn’t know, because they thought his name was Zelda. Link may have done a lot of work to get to the end, defeat Ganon, and save the princess, but he didn’t even get his name of the box of the game.

In much the same way, the internet became famous and called the World Wide Web, because of links. Without links, the internet wouldn’t exist. It would just be a bunch of people’s computer pages that sat exclusively on their computer, without anyone else being able to access them. It is the link that allows one person’s page to go to another page, to another page, and then down into a rabbit hole. No links, no rabbit holes. People consider the internet awesome because it has cool videos and memes, information, ways to talk to people around the world and how to do business. But you know what they never mention? The links.

Zuckerberg’s whole life would have been like that last scene in The Social Network. He would have been reloading that page hoping that the girl would accept his friend request in an eternal loop. The real reason why humans love the web is because it links to something or someone else. Links are like the people at the party that introduces two strangers to each other, so they can meet and eventually become friends. Or the person that sets people up on blind dates.

Sometimes links are the ones making sure two people with massive differences don’t kill each other.

Like, for example, the Generation Wars. The ones that have been brewing for some time now. You know the ones I’m talking about. Boomer vs. Millennials. Boomers vs. Gen Z. Gen Z vs. Millennials. All those generation gaps building up on the internet. You might notice one really smart, really capable, really awesome (Awesome 80’s) generation missing in the wars. That’s right. The X’ers. The generation that links all other generations together. The ones that grew up after the crazy 60’s, but before the internet, video games, streaming, Ipads and Iphones. But the ones that learned the internet, social media, video games, and all the tech, before our bones started to creak and crack.

We also learned how to listen to the Boomer’s and understand that they have a hard time understanding the new tech, because they had to do a lot of things manually.

We aren’t the flashy Zelda Millennials or Gen Z’s that need all the attention to validate themselves. We don’t need a selfie to know that we were somewhere. We understand it though, because we also wanted to be famous when we were young too, and we wish we had pictures of our youth that weren’t on a physical picture. The Millennials aren’t quite ready to be the link, because they’ve been drinking too much caffeine, so they are hyperlinks. When they calm down, we’ll let them be the links. We did dumb things when we were young that if they had been captured on cameras and uploaded somewhere, we would have been famous too.

We are the heroes in this generation war, even though we aren’t the name of the cover. We are all kinds of Zelda titles. We are The Link to The Past, and A Link Between Two Worlds. We loved the original Matrix movies, because we were Neo who saved two worlds, because he understood both of them. We were also the recent Matrix movie, because we knew the world still needed saving, even though we were starting to get a little older.

When the Boomer’s lecture, we soften the lecture to the youngies, because we know they had a world without the ease of tech. When the youngies complain about the oldies, we understand that Boomer’s talk too much about the past, and are too hard on kids that grew up with the tech in their hands.

Gen X’ers are the silent assassins, the sideline observers, the ninja’s hiding in the shadows, making sure the war doesn’t get out of hand. We are the Link to the Past, and the future. We have the skills of both sides of the war. The skills to easily move in and out of both sides of the circle. The skills of knowing enough tech to understand the kids, and the understanding of the outdoors enough to appease the Boomers.

We’re like the A-Team. If you have a problem, and no one else can help, and if you can find us, may you can hire…the X Team. We are there when you need us, but quiet when you don’t. When the war escalates to almost the point of no return, we will save it because of our cunning, wits, and because we’ve dipped out toes in both worlds. We may have to turn those skills over soon though, because the next generation is being born, and we are going to be too old to deal with those whippersnappers.

While my Gen will save that war, I’m not sure if this post can be saved. Luckily, I’ve learned the art of distraction, by putting funny gifs in front of you, much like putting yarn in front of a cat.

Look over here, there are Bitter Friday Gifs…

The iconic beginning of Legend of Zelda…

Nowadays, kids still like Link…

Link did all the adventuring and work…

Sometimes he got a subtitle…

I spend my whole day at work…

Sorry, no creating…

Dang it, no these kind…

Now we come to find out…

We’ve got the Gen Z’s…

We’ve got the Millennials…

And then we’ve got the Gen X…

Here to relate to the…

And patiently listen…

You’re welcome…

ARRGGHHHHH

Bitter Link to The Past Ben

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