As I sat in the car with my mom on October 26th, I said to her, “I wish I was your age.”
She looked at me like I was crazy, because why wouldn’t I want to be at an age embarking on the best years of my life? But, I told her it was because I was jealous of her childhood given the lack of my own. I wish I could feel comforted by the fact that I was able to spend a portion of my life shielded from the world’s horrors, but I realize now that will never be the case. “The only thing I remember is Monica Lewinsky,” she said. How much I wish that could be my generation’s biggest problem.
How I think of history is that past issues were brought up one at a time. If there was an external issue of war, the internal issues of our country wouldn’t seem as loud, and if there was an internal problem, the external ones wouldn’t feel as severe. So why now does it feel like both internal and external problems are hitting their peaks? Why is it that now, while we watch one of the most violent atrocities in the Middle East, we can just flip the channel to find yet another shooting? I would be the first one to say that there will be an ending to this, but I just cannot see where that lies right now. Where exactly are we all going?
We are living in a world right now where morality is more uncommon than not. I can count on one hand the number of people with a platform that actually have integrity. Even though I say I wish I was older, I consider myself lucky that I am not that deep into my youth right now. Even on the smallest scale, kids can’t even listen to their favorite musical artists because many of them have come out and expressed their hate of certain groups. It’s all unfathomable, and even when you try to swallow it, bit by bit, you’ll just end up throwing it all up again each time the issues return. It’s the fact that we aren’t telling ourselves that this isn’t normal because it is our normal now. The only thing I can say is that this isn’t why we were put on this earth. Humans were given life to live it, not to destroy it.
So what, we move to Mars (which is now a real possibility by the way)? We can’t figure out how to live on a giant planet giving us everything we need, so we have to find another place to destroy. Pathetic is what it is. I can bash this as much as I want, but the truth is that I’m part of the problem and so is everyone else. It feels like this turmoil is inevitable and just keeps getting worse every year.
When I read history books, I always picture what the kids my age at the time were going through, and the one conclusion I could draw was that there was always one thing that defined their childhood in terms of politics. So when the Coronavirus hit, I thought this would be our one thing. This would be what the history books would say about my childhood and then the dial would turn to another generation, and it would be something else. God, was I wrong. Climate change, AI, internal politics, international conflicts–it’s all becoming too much. How can we fight a problem if there is one on every corner? How can we come back stronger if each time we take a step forward we have to take a step back?
We need unity now more than ever. We need love, kindness, and faith. That really is the only way we can overcome these mountains; it is the only way children can have the childhood they deserve to have.
