Kintsugi for Gen X Men: Turning Scars Into Gold in the Age of AI
Sep 29, 2025
Most people throw away what’s broken.
- A cracked bowl
- A shattered cup…it goes in the trash.
In Japan, there’s an old tradition called Kintsugi. Instead of hiding the damage, they repair it with gold. The cracks don’t disappear…they shine.
The object becomes more valuable because of what it survived.
That’s us.
Gen X men. We’ve been cracked, chipped, sometimes shattered outright.
Could be…
- Divorce.
- Betrayal.
- Addiction.
- Failure.
- Job Loss.
- Estrangement.
A thousand individual battles fought in silence.
Everyone has different “cracks’ The common thread is we ALL have our own No one is immune
Regardless of the event we were programmed to rub dirt on it, to walk it off, to hide the cracks.
We are the last analog generation. Born in a world before constant screens, before curated feeds, before everything was filtered smooth. We learned patience, solitude, boredom, discernment…and reinvention.. We learned consequences without a “reset” button. And yet…when it came to our own pain…we buried it. Because that’s what we were taught. Don’t talk about it. Don’t show it. Just carry it.
And now? Many of us are still carrying it.
Quietly. Layers of it … Stacked.
The gold never poured into the cracks because we never let anyone see them. We became invisible in our own lives, wondering…
“Is this all there is?”
The Truth Nuke?... The things we’ve hidden are the very things AI will never have. LLMs can generate words, mimic tone, even fake warmth. But they cannot replicate scars earned in the real world. They cannot recreate the long-arc discernment of a man who has lived through both analog and digital, who remembers a world before algorithms and new media told him what to think.
In the age of AI, humanity itself is the separator. Our lived experience, our imperfections, our visible repairs….these are the seams of gold. And Gen X men, whether we realize it or not, are sitting on the last deep reservoir of it.
The Warning?... if we keep hiding it, if we keep swallowing the pain and playing the soldier, those cracks of experience die with us. The gold never gets poured. The cracks never shine.
And all that sovereignty, individuality, and reinvention mastery we hold inside us vanishes…leaving behind only smooth, synthetic noise curated by an outside entity with an agenda that isn’t necessarily yours
The first step in this process is brutal but simple…
Remember who the F you are.
- Not the mask.
- Not the role someone else put on you.
- Not the expectations of a society engineered to stifle independent thinking
The real you, underneath the cracks.
Then stop apologizing for it.
Start being proud of it.
That’s your Kintsugi.
That’s how you turn broken into invaluable.
Our scars don’t disqualify us.
They’re the only proof we have left that we’re real. And in the coming years, real is going to be the rarest and most valuable thing in the world.
Stay Lit
Bob
About Bob Manor
Bob Manor is the founder of South Ontario Auto Remarketing , Can-Am Dealer Services , and co-founder of Auto Auction Review. He’s also the creator of Influence.vin, a branding and communication studio built for the car business. With over 30 years in the automotive world, Bob specializes in wholesale, dealer services, and identity-driven brand strategy. He’s a regular contributor to well-known automotive publications and uses his platforms to help industry pros re-align with who they are, not just what they do
