I spent a long time criticizing the younger people of this world, and it was very convenient for me to do so when the widespread presumption is that with the expansions being done in technology us younger people are all just a mess of brain-dead peons more focused on making it to the last level of a video game that the societal structure of the civilization that surrounds us. In taking this belief for automatic truth because, again, well if the media is telling us it, and a bunch of middle-aged and older folk who are so often bitter and jealous of the young are telling us it well.... it must be true. And when I held this belief, knowing that I was trying to learn and feel a sense of concern about the world I live in so that things can expand and get better instead of spiraling downward I felt like I was part of an almost microscopic minority. It worried me to an incredibly degree. I felt like the generation I was living in might have what it took to turn things around a little and keep us on an even keel but this younger generation behind me, born into the world of the internet and cell phones, never knowing a world without them, I had serious doubts as to the type of world we would have once that generation grew up and became the one’s who had the power. I saw a future of continuous decline because I assumed so much of this young generation would be so coked out on video games, cell phone apps, and texting that they would become completely blind to the problems of this world and especially in their own country.
That being said, I am happy to say my perspective of this matter now it not so pessimistic. Over these recent years I have found something, for myself, which is that in this younger generation, of which being 28-years old I still consider myself a part of and closely connected to, is far more perceptive than I previously gave them credit for. It gives me hope for the future against all these fears that technology is going to overcome all of us and turn us into robots more or less (which wasn’t something I’ve really bought into all that much in the first place). It’s funny that in this day and age I hear so many people acting so critical over the behavior of humans and talking about how horrible we are and while, yes, we are flawed... very flawed, much of this widespread criticism often applies to a relative few but is held over the heads of the many. We talk about the crooked politicians we have, the struggling economy, poverty, problems with the educational system, widespread drug problems, medical and heath care fiascos and so on and so many reach the conclusion that we’re all a bunch of deadbeat, brainless fools for letting this all happen. And to a degree that’s true but at the same time we have so many people born into this world that are left ignorant as to what goes on in it and the media, believe it or not (I’m sure a bunch of you will say I’m scapegoating when I state this), paints a picture of society that those in power want us to believe in. That way, if the reality of what is really going on “behind the scenes” so to speak amidst our government and those in power, it often seems too ridiculous to believe. So the media paints the world we’re used to and keeps hammering it home to us so we become less and less suspicious. The media is one of the primary things that has concerned me with regards to the younger people. Another presumption I had was that the young would soak up so much of what the media spits out that they’d live their lives is misguided naivety.
Once again, to my chagrin, I’ve been proven wrong to a degree. Amidst this deep and dark distaste for so much of what goes on in our country now and the people living within it I have fortunately discovered something much more pleasant and uplifting within it. In the sometimes crazy and lost demeanor of our country’s young people I have found compassion and love the likes I find remarkably absent in our older generations. So many of those I know who are around my parents age, late forties and up, are so bitter and narcissistic. They are so focused on their own problems and, weather they do or don’t, so caught up in how hard their lives are and how much harder they are than the lives of the young people. In some cases they’re right and some they’re wrong, because I’ve found a good many of these middle-aged folk have very little to complain about but do so anyway. And how these people conduct themselves is critical to understand because these people are the parents of this younger generation I am speaking off. I wrote a rather lengthy piece about two years back when I took notice of serious rifts between many of my friends and their parents. But beyond my noticing that in some cases these parents were already derelict in even their most general parenting responsibilities it was still their children that were expressing far more communal and responsible behavior. That was one of my first recognitions that I was wrong in many ways about this young generation. Even my personal experiences with this middle-aged generation, in particular with many patriarchal figures, has left me speechless on occasion and dumbfounded in others.
I have just found such an essence of self-centeredness and a complete lack of openness in much of this older generation and I’m certain some of this comes from the world they grew up in. This lack of compassion I have found in the older generations applies to many of those who hold the most power in our country, these obviously being older people who moved their way up into a place of power and are now reaping the rewards... to an extreme excess. Now obviously this does not apply to all people of these older generations, I’m not trying to make it out as though these people are all a bunch of sociopaths or something outlandish like that. It’s just that this is one of the greatest faults I see between older generations and the younger ones. And then, of course, when we call the older generations on their, for lack of a better word, “bullshit”, they always have those age old comebacks like “well, you’re too young to understand”. Again, in some cases and with some people that is accurate, but in many cases it is a blanket statement laid down by people who still believe in the myth, or at least want to believe that age automatically brings you wisdom. I’ve met some very ignorant, very misguided elderly people who chose to be that way their whole lives and thus don’t know much more now than when they were young like me. But to presume that age makes for more intellect gives the older generations an escape hatch. But this doesn’t change the nonsensical nature of the whole thing.
But I hope this change will make for even greater generations, those that will follow after the youngest one we currently have. Not to sound like a Miss America candidate, but I hope with this change I have seen in the young will lead to a more compassion in the next generation, which will be the children they bare. And maybe this will make for a more peaceful future, but furthermore it will continue an ever-changing path in the human condition, but it will be changing in a positive direction. This may allow for stronger fighting and a counterbalance to what is definitely psychopathic and sociopathic behavior among those who represent our nation’s wealthiest 1%. If the people in general continue to change and become more passionate about what is right it is only going to expand the positive vibes which will hopefully lead to greater happiness and stock that we take in ourselves. This will hopefully lead to greater education which will not only help us act more cautiously and intelligently about those we choose to put in power we will utilize that power over the government that we as the people have but hardly ever exercise. These are lofty goals, I obviously understand that, but I am merely trying to lay out a general blueprint of what I see becoming more and more possible in the future just through my examinations of the young people in this country.
My inspiration to begin writing on this subject was spurred on by an article that popped up only recently in reference to a student protest that had occurred at a high school in which a former student at the school had committed suicide. Reportedly school officials chose to turn a deaf ear on the occurrence, pretty much acting like it didn’t happen. But this was a former student at this school and thus the student body there knew him and, no doubt, many of them were friends with him. In reaction to the school’s dismissive approach to the situation several students skipped class and engaged in protest. Ten years ago I might’ve said, without knowing all the details, “Shut up and go back to class!” I would have been like these passive school administrators and probably not even noticed. But I looked at this particular one and my reaction was, “Good! No matter what the school says you stand up when you know something’s wrong.” That gets to the heart of how my perspective on the young has changed is because I see situations like this occurring everywhere wherein the presumably ignorant and not fully educated young go up against the school hierarchy of older folks who stroke their ego with presumptions that they’ll be able to use their authority and misguided sense of superior intellect and sway these younger people. But in watching the video that one of the students captured at this protest in which the principal, a despicable human being I could tell after only seeing him for two minutes, I saw a young student body who saw right through the facade.
For those who haven’t seen the video or haven’t heard about this little story, and probably many haven’t since it only recently occurred (and I hope it gets more and more attention), the principal walked in on these protesting students, some of which were incredibly and understandably vocal about their beliefs that the school’s approach to the situation was wrong and equally justifying the actions they were engaging in. What has made the situation such a major issue is the fact that shortly upon his arrival he expressed that he was very disappointed in these students for what they were engaging in, a comment in which one of the students replied that they were disappointed in him (the principal) as well, which was met with applause. After this moment, no doubt violating law and the basic fundamental functions of the first amendment of our nations Constitution, the principal had two officers come and arrest this student that had expressed his displeasure in the principal. A typical example of a power-tripping jackass. Just an egotistical, deplorable obscenity on the face of the earth and yet he has power over a whole American high school. The arrest is visible at the end of the video wherein the student is seen sprawled out on the floor with his hands being cuffed behind his back.
It was this arrest for merely making a statement that the given student had every right to make (and when I was in high school trust me I heard students say and do much worse things to members of school personnel and yet I have no memory of any of them being arrested for their actions) that has made this situation start to blow up as it has. But in watching the video my attention was captured by something else, something which bothered me so much more than the desire to arrest one’s own student for utilizing his right to free speech. After quieting the rousted crowd for a brief moment the principal managed to get a few words out and what he had to say was so remarkably heartless and unfeeling I scarcely see how such a fiend could wake up in the morning and think he has the right to savor the same air that his student body does. He proceeded to call this protest, which again was conducted by several students of the school’s decision to not even recognize the tragic death of a student, suicide though it was, a joke. Based on the structure of the way he spoke it was relatively clear he was not calling the protest a joke like it was a prank conducted by students to get out of class, but he referred to it as a joke in the way you callously call something a joke for being absurd. Like if a perverted police officer pulls an attractive woman over, prepositions her and when she reacts defensively he arrests her you’d say that police officer is a joke. How this principle, the head of a particular institution in whose purpose in to help educate and develop their own little portion of the youth of this world, could call an act of compassion that his students were putting on a joke is astounding to me. These were young people dealing with the tragic death of a friend, a young person whom at least some of them were friends with. This was a tragic and sensitive situation and these students were in pain over it. And, pardon my language the emotion is beginning to come out, but where was their school’s fucking compassion for them in this time of need? What did they choose to do about it? Well let me tell you, they chose to treat it like an inconvenience instead of a tragedy. They were so pathetic and lazy about the situation that they didn’t even try to do the classic cover job by walking in and playing the overly sensitive card, the old, “We understand you’re sad and hurting, but in skipping class you’re only hurting yourselves.” Yeah, sure skipping class (regularly) does hurt yourself and adversely effect your advancements in educations, but that nonsense doesn’t matter in cases such as these because those in power seldom are thinking about it in that way, but rather they just want to make the situation end without a lot of fanfare. I tell you what, if these school districts cared half as much about their students as they do about their image they’d have nothing to be worried about because the students would be happy and engaged and their districts would we a living and breathing success story. But apparently logic like that just makes too much sense for “real world” school districts.
I looked at this situation and I pondered how a psychologist, and honest to goodness psychologist would look at this (especially if that individual were a school psychiatrist or one that generally worked with young people). If I were one I would be aghast as to the total unfeeling nature of this school’s principal and I’d probably want to step up and punch him in the face repeatedly until he passed out, the hopes of which being maybe I knocked him about enough to allow the reconfiguration of his brain and a reassessment as to his fucked in the head mode of thinking. I just astounds me, but in that light of positivity it is abundantly clear that the student body was buying none of their principals idiosyncrasies. And thank God for that. It was just a further reminder that this presumption that the young are all irresponsible, brainwashed, technologically hampered miscreants is a complete and total lie. The only positive I can see behind situations such as this one occurring in schools in the future is that it will provide other student bodies with direct examples as to when the powers that be behave in a completely outlandish manner, which at the same time playing the government’s game that who we really are is not who we are on paper (to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a little bit). We’re supposed to be the land of the free, the melting pot, varying diversity with different and gripping cultures all over the place, but those in power remember that in order to keep their power they have to try and keep us silent and stupid. Dissent is equated with terrorism, treason, Communism and pretty much any other kind of title when the American people stand up for themselves. It is my hope that in experiencing this effort to keep everyone silent and inline like cattle, as was clearly the case in this high school wherein the principal boots out anyone who criticizes him while demeaning the pain and suffering of his student body, these students will discover this mode of behavior, prevalent by our current government and those major corporations that control everything we see, buy and so on at an early age and thus catch onto it much faster. Then when they go out into the “real world” and have to get a job and so on they’ve have a much more keen eye on the insanity that goes on around them.
More than ever I have a positive view on these younger generations and their desire to bring about compassion and understanding as oppose to living in the denial that because we’re America we’re perfect and know every damn thing there is to know. I consider myself a very intellectual person. I several years of college education I sport better than a 3.8 G.P.A. having an excess of 200 college credits to my credit. I’ve been smart since I was a child and have had that reinforced by practically every I know, but when it comes to true compassion, in it’s most pure and simple form, my generation and even those a little younger have taught me things that on my own, in my own little box of intelligence, I had never really taken the time to acknowledge in the way I should have. Being intelligent is one thing. To read a text or take a study course and discover new information is one thing but to gain new knowledge in whose genesis stems purely from a stream of compassionate humanity is truly a life changing experience. No matter what it is you learn it is something that will forever change the way you believe. It’s helped me check on myself more and never be presumptuous that the way I believe is somehow inevitably right (everyone else just needs to figure it out for themselves). Change is frightening, we all say that and yeah it is, but the revelations that often follow are worth the stressful transition. I find change to be incredibly invigorating and eye-opening. Each time you change it’s often a shedding of self-centeredness and if that change comes in accordance to insight into others the effects are even more invigorating because the sensation is one that makes you feel like you’re being drawn closer to those around you. Instead of disassociating from those close to you your sense of community to your fellow man/woman grows stronger. And that’s what has happened to me watching these younger people stand up for what they believe is right and willing to risk overreactive behavior by those older and in power. When someone abuses their power on you it’s often a sign that they’re nervous and threatened by you (translation, you’re getting your point across). And it’s very sad, in the case of this school protest these students were not looking for kicks or just being rebellious and trying to piss their school personnel off, but rather were showing the care and compassion that their school wasn’t willing to express. What they were doing was showcasing a capacity for basic human love and feeling. Something is attainable by the most uneducated, financially poor, lost and misguided souls in this universe because it doesn’t require book knowledge to understand but rather an understanding of the human heart and a sense of love over hate for the people of this world. We are really very fragile people and so we often act out in foolish ways and sometimes are overaggressive to others when they act out, but when we realize that none of us are perfect and that when we make mistakes it’s not worth creating the next great American crisis over we find a way to not just live together but to live closer together.
I’m reminded of the first anime convention I attended in 2008. I have no great love of anime, there’s a few out there I like, but I had some friends going and I just thought it would be fun to accompany them. I felt a little out of place sure, and I noticed a common theme at these conventions is that people would see others whom they‘d never met before and, sometimes based on the outfit one was wearing, the other would charge them and hug them. They’d compliment each other on their outfits, get pictures taken together. It felt very strange to me wandering around, and I experienced much of the same when I attended the same convention again in 2011. I found myself being the victim of a few random attack hugs from various people at the convention and I felt it was so weird to have these people whom I’d never met running up to me and complimenting my clothes and throwing their arms around me. Granted such is not an everyday occurrence when you’re on the bus to school or venturing about at your job. However, after some time passed and my heart softened and became more passionate and caring than it has be at times in the past I had pause and considered this behavior specifically in the context of being at a convention. And it was then I posed to myself a very simple and fundamental question: “What is so wrong about a stranger hugging you?” It was in considering that question and reflecting back on the blind love and appreciation these convention-goers showed to each other that I found great appreciation for the enterprise, even though, again, I’m not a big anime fan. And again, those one the outside for the most part like me, who aren’t really into anime probably look at these conventions and scoff, seeing them as a waste of money and time more than anything else. But, of course, these people can easily paint that bleak picture because they’re too self-centered to remember that simple human truth that we are all different and love different things. They dismiss conventions like this because they have no appeal to him/her specifically (an ignorant excuse for dismissal that I am so glad is a habit I shed years ago). They choose then to pass lazy conclusions that are inaccurate because they don’t take a moment to engage in deeper thought and consider the basic question as to why so many would take interest in such a convention if it’s so pointless. Obviously there’s something incredibly attractive there. But it goes beyond anime and getting to play dress up. It’s, like so many other things, an opportunity for people to connect on things they enjoy, but beyond that they have an overwhelming love that is so strong that they’re able to spill it out on random strangers without hesitation. It is this that so many may look at and think is bizarre but at the same time is something I look at and think is truly beautiful (and another example of the younger people of this world expressing a powerful sense of love and compassion that I see lacking so horribly in the older generations). So I feel I can go to sleep tonight and in the nights to come feeling more positive about the possibilities of the future and even feel a sense of excitement as we look ahead at what our country can become in the future and where we can make great changes for the better. And that being said, it’s getting rather late so I should probably take some of my own advice and run off to sleep now. Good night everyone, and don’t lose hope! We’re all a lot stronger than we realize.
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