From Personal Struggles to Generational Revolution: Launching the Kicked Can Generations Podcast

What if you grew up in a household where love was often expressed through passive-aggressive behavior? Join me, Robin Duncan, along with my partner Jim Murphy, as we launch the first episode of the Kicked Can Generations podcast. I share my deeply personal journey from a traditional Christian Republican upbringing in Iowa to discovering love and battling personal demons like depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Therapy and self-discovery have been my lifelines, and through sharing this, I hope to inspire others to embrace their true selves and seek the support they need. Jim and I also delve into pressing societal issues that our generations face, from environmental sustainability to modernizing our work environments, advocating for a balanced life where experiences take precedence over relentless work.

We're not just talking change; we're demanding a revolution for a new golden age. With the punk spirit that defines us, we challenge the status quo and call upon Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha to spearhead transformative solutions for enduring issues like environmental policy, constitutional reform, and government accountability. The Constitution is for "we the people," not we the corporations, and it's time we remind our leaders of this. Together, let’s cultivate a future where ingenuity and balanced living are at the forefront. Tune in and join our movement toward meaningful change—your brilliant ideas are the sparks that will ignite this revolution. Thank you for being a part of our journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Healing Generations
• 8:23 Revolution for a New Era

Transcript

Robin: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Kicked Can Generations podcast. I'm your host, Robin Duncan, along with Jim Murphy, and I'd like to welcome you to our very first episode Now. Jim will be joining us in the next couple episodes, but as of right now, I just kind of wanted to introduce you to what the podcast is about.

Robin: 0:20

I grew up in Iowa as a kid to a stereotypical Christian Republican household Family of five, with father working as an art teacher and a stay-at-home mom until later on, where she became a cook at the same school. We looked like the typical American family but you know, like most Gen X families, things did not always appear as they seem. But behind the scenes my parents' relationship was very passive-aggressive, with some codependent tendencies thrown in there, shall we say. which led me to several shit-ass relationships, which I think is the technical term. Actually, Add on three sexual assaults in my lifetime, and after the last one I started asking what is it that I am sending out into the world that is attracting this? So after some good therapy, I realized I didn't love myself. After working on that, all of a sudden, my relationships improved. Now, at this point I was living in Chicago and online dating had just begun, but no one seemed real interested in real relationships. It was so superficial. If you couldn't hold their interest you got ghosted, it was instantly bye. But when I moved to Oklahoma City, I met my man, Jim, For the first time ever. I didn't need to be a performing monkey, which was quite refreshing actually.

Robin: 1:53

And then the pandemic hit and along with that, what I like to call second puberty, but you might know it as perimenopause. Now, Gen X was the first generation where they noticed the whole ADD/ ADHD, but it was mostly in boys, but girls. When you hit perimenopause and if you have ADHD, it makes your symptoms 10 times worse, which led me to seek some mental help again. But this time I decided I was going to get tested to make sure that this is what's wrong with me. Now, when I hit first puberty, I was blessed with depression and anxiety two suicide attempts, one in my teens and one in my late 20s. But luckily, in those situations I realized that suicide was a pretty permanent, fucking solution to an extremely temporary problem. And let me repeat that again, Suicide is a pretty permanent solution to a temporary problem. But I will tell you, trust me, it does get better. But I will tell you, trust me it does get better. So please go forth and get help so you can become the parent that you never had.

Robin: 3:16

The most healing that I had ever done was healing my inner child. So when I finally got my results back, I had a huge pile of ADHD with a little sprinkling here and there from the autism spectrum. All of a sudden, my childhood made sense my constant observing of everything, but able to recognize certain types of patterns, not always understanding human interactions. Now I just needed to relearn how my brain works again. Being in Oklahoma and the lack of therapists led me to, unfortunately, doing this a lot on my own, which I do not recommend, but I kind of feel like I needed to heal my inner child now.

Robin: 3:59

I was one of those weird kids who somehow remembered their last past life, and I remember any time I brought up stuff like that at home. My mom would always warn me to never say stuff like that or they'll end up throwing me in a mental institution. After a few of those what I took as threats at the time, I never spoke of it again. So I thought I would take an Unlock your intuition class, where you learn how to talk to your spirit, guides and ancestors, learn about your past lives. In order to do all of that, you had to clear out all the bullshit in your head. This is where I finally connected the dots with the autism in regards to my childhood and realizing that, Jim, let me be myself and I was unmasking my ADHD and my autistic behaviors that I've learned over the years and I actually kind of healed my inner child. Now I know how my brain functions better now, knowing all of that, which places this podcast kind of somewhere between a deep need of therapy and yet needing someone to kind of step the fuck up and kind of call out corporations, the world leaders, and basically make a goddamn difference in this world.

Robin: 5:19

When I was a kid, the first time that I saw and heard the London punk scene, I was hooked. I loved the anti-social and the anti-political leanings of the punk scene because it basically was telling the previous generations to kind of fuck off. So with this podcast, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to call up my brothers and sisters of Gen X, my millennials, my Gen Z, my Gen Alpha. It's our time, my dudes. It is time for us to step up and start giving a shit Now. I generally call Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, the kicked can generations. Our previous generations, while they were in power, kept kicking the stuff that they didn't want to deal with just down the line.

Robin: 6:15

Now all those cans have landed at our feet, plus cleaning up all the messes that they have created throughout the years. Some of these cans include, like the environment, gun control, abortion, lack of affordable housing, inflation and corporations' record profits, yet low income. We also have an outdated work environment in which a family had one person at home taking care of the house while the other earns an income. That model doesn't exist anymore, so why are we still working with it? People are to have experiences in life, not a life of work experiences. I sometimes think that I have forgotten how to live because we are so burnt out from all the work and the hustle. I want a soft life. That's what I believe our American dream is now. I dream of learning how to work together again. Now.

Robin: 7:18

America chose a capitalistic democratic society, which means that there has to have a strong middle class and corporate and government oversight, and right now we're kind of at a tipping point and sadly, this election coming up is a pivotal point. We can choose the status quo, in which there's no real movement forward, because they are so wanting to go backwards in time, or we can move forward and try and fix some of the kicked cans that they have sent down the road. So, my kicked canners, I'm calling upon you to vote this November and we need to go Democratic across the board, House and Senate. The Dems need to have the majority in order for us to actually affect any legislation or start to fix any of these problems, Because there are more of us out there than there are of them, and the current status quo that we are in is unsustainable, and we all know it.

Robin: 8:23

We can't keep doing the same thing and expecting change. Trust me, no one is more shocked than me that this Gen Xer here is calling out the revolution, but, honestly, I want to see the next golden age of man, I want to see the next Renaissance period, and we can get there, but we can't get there going backwards. So that's what we're going to be discussing in our future episode Solutions to all these kicked cans that they have given us over the years. So are you in? So if anyone has any brilliant solutions, especially about the environment, constitutional law, fixing the government and reminding them that the Constitution says we the people, not we the corporations. So keep it, punk my younglings and I'll see you next episode. Thank you and good night.