Archetype : Nomad

The Nomad archetype, as identified by Strauss and Howe in The Fourth Turning, experiences --

• Reputation as child: bad
• Coming of age: alienating
• Coming of age focus: self-sufficiency
• Young adulthood: competing
• Transition in midlife: frenetic to exhausted
• Leadership style entering elderhood: solitary, pragmatic
• Reputation as elder: tough
• Treatment as elder: abandoned
• How they are nurtured: underprotective
• How they nurture: overprotective
• Position: Second in the cycle, recessive
• Positive reputation: savvy, practical, perceptive
• Negative reputation: unfeeling, uncultured, amoral
• Endowments: liberty, survival, honor

Today's Nomads are GenXers (Thirteeners).

• Born 1961 - 1981
• 82.0 million in 2005 (U.S.)
• Ages in 2007: 26-46
• American Nomad generations have been Reprisal, Cavalier, Liberty, Gilded, Lost and (now) Thirteeners (GenX)

Books to understand GenXers better:

• 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? (You can get it for a penny!)
• Generations is also quite informative.