Why the Next Generation Is Waking Up
The quiet cost of inheritance—and the return to meaning.
You may have heard the term “Adult Children of Divorce”—used to describe those who grew up navigating the emotional terrain of separation and family rupture.
But there’s a new legacy unfolding: ACoEs.
“Adult Children of Extractors.”
These are the sons and daughters of the 19%—
not the 1% who own the game,
not the 80% surviving it—
but the ones who kept it running.
They were raised on optimization.
On metrics, on merit, on motion.
Taught to win without asking why.
Taught to perform worth, instead of trust it.
And here’s the thing: their parents weren’t evil.
They were surviving, too.
They believed in the rules. They believed following them would protect their children.
In many cases, they were rewarded for that belief.
Professional success. Social mobility. Financial safety.
But what went unnoticed—until now—was the emotional cost passed down:
anxiety masked as ambition, love entangled with productivity, and self-worth confused with external validation.
A whole generation inherited emotional restraint as discipline,
and burnout as proof they were doing it right.
Then vs. Now: The Shape of Extraction
In the past, extraction was physical.
- Land was seized.
- Labor was owned.
- Resources were stripped.
Colonialism, slavery, and industrial capitalism operated in the open—brutal, material, and visible.
Today, extraction is psychological, emotional, and digital.
- Attention is mined.
- Identity is monetized.
- Belonging is packaged and sold.
The resource now is you:
Your data.
Your focus.
Your creativity.
Your sense of self.
The plantation is now a platform.
The overseer is now an algorithm.
The product is now a person—
performing for validation, optimization, and survival.
It’s no accident that younger generations are opting out.
They aren’t lazy.
They’re discerning.
They’re witnessing the subtle violence of systems that applaud output, ignore interiority, and disguise control as opportunity.
The New Natural Order of Humans
Let’s name what we’ve built:
- The Architects (1%) — design the system. They shape incentives, write the rules, and stay largely invisible. They don’t just own capital—they construct the conditions under which others must operate.
- The Extractors (19%) — enforce the system. They don’t own it, but they benefit from proximity to power. They believe in the rules because the rules rewarded them. They extract performance—from teams, from systems, from themselves—believing it’s excellence.
- The Laborers (80%) — endure the system. They comply, adapt, and keep going. Their resilience is romanticized. Their exhaustion is ignored. They don’t have time to question the game—they’re too busy trying to survive it.
This isn’t just economic.
It’s psychological, generational, and spiritual.
The Extractors believed they were doing the right thing.
But many became the everyday agents of a system that quietly traded vitality for output.
And now, a new generation is waking up to it.
They’re not mad.
They’re exhausted.
They’re grieving the life they were trained to want.
They’ve inherited the burnout, the quiet sadness, and the question:
Is this all there is?
Not Rebellion—Remembrance
This isn’t rebellion.
It’s not generational war.
It’s something more sacred than that.
It’s remembrance.
Of worth that doesn’t need to be earned.
Of rest that doesn’t need to be justified.
Of belonging that isn’t based on credentials or deliverables.
And the shift is showing up everywhere:
- In the desire for meaningful work over prestigious titles.
- In the rejection of hustle as identity.
- In the questioning of systems that call us “resources,” “content,” or “human capital.”
They’re not rejecting their parents.
They’re reweaving what was lost.
They’re stepping out of the machinery and asking the one question the system never could:
What does it mean to be human, if not this?
This is the migration. Of meaning.
The next generation isn’t just leaving jobs, roles, or cities.
They’re leaving a worldview.
They are not broken.
They are responding.
And that’s why I’ve written The Migration of Meaning.
To name what’s been lost.
To trace how extraction became identity.
And to offer a path—not back—but forward.
Toward something rooted.
Relational.
Whole.
It’s not a guidebook.
It’s a mirror.
And an invitation.
To remember that we were never meant to perform our worth.
We were meant to live it.