Sometimes I see a meme online and think about sharing it on Facebook, but honestly – I’m super tired of social media. It’s divisive and leaves so much out of the discourse. So I suppose I’ll post them here – musing all the thoughts I have that read **in between the lines** of thought-provoking memes and content I see online. I’m not claiming in any way my personal perspectives are correct or absolute. I do assert, however, that we as a culture are in a moment where we are collectively being forced to re-learn deep discourse outside the comfy walls of our algorithmically curated content farms.
Ok here’s the rant following the Pre-Rant
Gerontocracy has been so normalized for several generations at this point – it’s one of the very first things I started to rage at when I was a tiny bb history student in an increasingly Trumpy world (I graduated undergrad and became a Real Grownup™️ in 2016) and it’s one of the things I continue to highlight at every chance I get.
The people who consistently change the whole freaking world are YOUNG.
But we are conditioned to believe you can’t have ideas until you’re like 50 and have a nice 401k. Until you’re **responsible**
We lose so much as a society by stubbornly refusing to prioritize young voices. We fight it every time, failing to appreciate their work until it’s too late. Until it’s comfortably meme-able a generation or two later.
And to claim “ah well they don’t have XYZ skill that my generation had–“
Did we teach it to them? And more importantly – do they even fekking need it?
To claim that we just don’t know how the youngsters will take over the world and it’s risky and they don’t have experience and blah blah blah – it’s lunacy. The world is on FIRE and the people who are ready to rebuild it are consistently in their 20s and 30s. All the chatter about unprecedented events – who better to handle the unprecedented than the people who aren’t conditioned into believing the world exists in any other way?
I’m tired of the “Boomers ruin everything” discourse (although it has its truths) and I wonder each day what could happen if us Not Monster People simply set that aside to focus on young people. Not in a toxic positivity way – honestly, somewhat the opposite. But in a “Sorry we ruined the world, 22 year old McKenna – here’s XYZ resources, please use them at your discretion to start something in your network.”
Side note – if you want to contribute to that we have projects that are doing exactly that here in Omaha, please send me an email admin@thesustainablesuburbanites.com
I’m 30, and I feel ten thousand years old sometimes. I have resigned myself to understanding that my fellow 30 somethings probably aren’t going to sit in any seats of power in any sufficient quantities any time soon. That, quite frankly, is what it is.
But we don’t need seats of power to change the world.
The 20 year olds simply need the 30 year olds to amplify their voices. And the 30 year olds need the 40 year olds to amplify theirs. And the 50s the 40s. Each generation, scraping back the power that has been funneling upward through age and wealth (lol remember when those were associated with each other) and put the next generation in charge of the narrative.
We can rage porn the olds and the riches as much as we like – but the power to amplify the everyone elses is entirely within our control. Zero Waste applies to our energy too, and to give them even one moment of our precious time is just one more drop of control we rip from The Youths and send to The Crazy Old Guys In Charge.
Take back that control. Wield it, don’t waste it.
And wherever you can find one tiny scrap of power in this monstrous world – give it to someone younger than you.