In almost one month, I will be an adult.
Well, I’ll be the closest thing to an adult our society allows, outside of being able to rent a car. But I will have secured my college degree — hopefully — and will be on my way to an entry-level job that will accelerate my career — extra hopefully.
But this four-year journey came at a cost. The dark circles under my eyes became darker and my mental sanity and youthful ignorance seemed to dissipate faster than my hairline.
In short, college made me old. It made me cantankerous.
Brandon Hill | Argonaut 2015
It’s a bit ironic, as I started my secondary education with a distaste for those older than I who characterized my own generation as ill-prepared for the “real world” or too caught up in our digital lives to appreciate our surroundings.
But as my responsibilities at work increased, my coursework at school increased and that big, scary future I was warned of loomed near, I came to one simple realization — they were right. My faith in my own generation is all but gone. My hope for the future has darkened considerably.
Many young people — not all — simply don’t have what it takes. I can’t count the times I’ve been flabbergasted by the sheer stupidity of those my age or younger. Whether it be a simple misstep or a failure to communicate effectively, I’ve seen my fair share of disappointing behavior from millennials and Gen Z.
Don’t worry, I include myself in this bleak landscape of a generation. We young people have great ideas, revolutionary ways of thinking that can hopefully one day change the world. But right now, we tend to flounder in self-pity and laziness, waiting for the next great episode of some useless, meaningless TV show to stream while real life passes us by in a blur.
The most maddening factor of my generation is our incredible, untapped potential. We are beginning to see inklings of greatness creep out from the shadows, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taking Congress by storm.
But at the same time, as I gaze across my classroom filled to the brim with glazed-over eyes and smartphones wisely placed out of the teacher’s glance, I realize we’ve become not complacent in the current state of things, but complacent in our current knowledge of the world and how it operates.
I see this in young people’s reluctance to read. There’s a reason newspapers are struggling, outside of a business model straight from the Stone Age. The Pew Research Center has run multiple studies detailing how each new generation is less aware of current events and important political developments than those who came before it. Young people, the future leaders of this world, know less about the world around them. They dig through their social media feeds, absorbing the latest dank meme without learning anything of substance.
And there lies the inherent problem. Young people, in order to become more productive members of society, need to read. They need to learn. They need to check out a newspaper.
Because, as the Washington Post often reminds us, democracy dies in darkness. So why don’t we turn on a light?
Brandon Hill can be reached at [email protected]