So much is happening in the world at large and even in my own world. It is hard to believe that good still exists in a world so crazy. The wage gap between the rich and the poor is widening. The unemployment rate of recent college grads is something like 50%. House Republicans have threatened to shut down the government if they can not repeal Obamacare like the last three dozen times they've attempted to do so. A war on women's reproductive rights has been waged all over the country and some douchebag county clerk in California is refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. The divide is deep and troublesome between ideals and nothing is getting done, the recovery is slow, no one is to blame and everyone is to blame. The whole thing just feels somehow rotten and dire.
But at the same time, in the same world, existing in the same space are people doing real and tangible good. They are able to do this in spite of the world we live in, not because of it. And these things are coming from a generation of people who the major news outlets have deemed lazy, addicted to technology, too idealistic, not starting our lives soon enough, destroying the world with our casual sex and our refusal to produce babies and buy houses and drive cars because clearly, our parents' transition into adulthood is the only noble transition into adulthood.
When I find myself, my generation of cohorts lambasted by a generation who created us for doing things differently than they do, for wanting different things, for being too idealistic and liberal or whatever else it is we as a generation are doing incorrectly, I fall victim to ageism. I get bitter when old people come to bitch about car sharing at the city council meeting. I assume these people are old and losing their wits and quite frankly should go ahead and sit down. They had their chance to make their mark on the world and turned it into what we see now. They let all of our social safety nets dissolve. They let us get into the mess we are in and are hereby exempt from having any more influence or opinion. And I know this is ridiculous and disrespectful and casting this net over an entire generation makes me guilty of doing the exact same thing I'm pissed they have done to me. So I'm attempting to be more open minded about other people's opinions. Especially the opinions I don't agree with.
The good news is time doesn't stop for anyone. The bad news is time doesn't stop for anyone and eventually, I may find myself as the raving old person with antiquated bad ideas. But until that happens, I will do my damndest to make a mark on the world that I live in now.
