The Kids Are All Right

Watching these teens stand-up to atrocious adults—you can’t help but remember back to when you thought you could change the world.

// watch. the. youth. //

Are you? Do you know what I’m talking about?

The teens.

The ones from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida who just watched 17 of their friends get slaughtered.

And who looked at that event in grief and disbelief and said:

ENOUGH.

THIS IS OUR WORLD TOO.

AND YOU’RE. NOT. RUNNING IT RIGHT.

Yup, that’s what they’re saying to us all.

Watching these students stand-up to atrocious adults — you can’t help but remember back to when you thought you were invincible. Back when you thought you could do anything.

There’s a brief window in every young person’s life when the world opens up for the first time.

When you begin to realize the world is bigger than you, your family, your friends, your community.

It’s a period of immense growth, when each new idea that enters your mind is fascinating. Why? Because you’d simply never known this much before. Up until so very recently, you were an actual kid.

You played games. You went to bed at bedtime. You entertained yourself with your imagination. You lived in a contained and tiny world.

But no more.

Growing up is like sitting in a grand theatre, wide-eyed as heavy curtains are slowly drawn apart — revealing a set so awe-inspiring you’ll hardly let yourself blink.

Whoa, look at the world.

So big and beautiful,

so messy and marvelous…

whoa.

Your mind races to catch up. Rapidly expanding to capture it all.

And soon, you stop accepting the information as it is given to you, and start to form opinions.

Humans in formation.

“The paradox of education is precisely this — that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.”

- James Baldwin

So you’re in the middle of a tremendously formative part of your life.

You’re starting to understand how the world works and how it doesn’t work.

You’re forming opinions. You’re brimming with youthful naiveté.

You think you can change the world.

Life’s a’swirl.

Then a boy — who everyone knows is troubled and potentially dangerous — barges into the place you go every day to see your friends and flirt in the halls and explore your identity and expand your mind and he starts firing an automatic weapon through the bodies of your peers.

WHAT?

You hide trembling, sending terrified text messages to your parents telling them there’s a gunman in your school, you can hear bullets, you might die, you love them so much…

What the fuck would you do the next day?

You can only hope you’d do what these students are doing.

You can only hope you’d rise up and yell.

That you would use that youthful confidence, that pure belief that not only could the world change… but you could be the one to change it.

In other words: you can only hope you’d do… what children should never have to do. Because us adults should be doing it for them.

We’ve failed.

We teach kids about love and kindness and caring and sharing, then don’t hold ourselves or our peers to the same standards. Like a sick joke, we fill children’s minds with optimism even when we know the world is cruel and that we’re not doing anything to stop it.

What did we expect would happen when they found out?

This is only the beginning.

A new generation of activists is rising up, and they’re screaming what should be obvious to us all.

You know, the real truths. The simple truths that are so clear when you strip away politics and religion, fear and greed.

It should be very hard for people to kill people.

A tiny percentage of the population should not hold the majority of it’s wealth.

We must help refugees fleeing other countries. We are one world. They are actual humans.

Speaking of which, don’t be racist.

The world is a better place when we let our women shine. We all know this. So prop us up instead of holding us down.

It doesn’t matter who someone else marries, or with what gender they identify. You can still live your life exactly as you want, and better yet — they can live theirs too.

And last but certainly not least: If we don’t protect our planet, none of the above even matters. Ha. Ha. (Damn.)

There it is. Some basic human truths.

The kids seem to know them, but so do you… you’re just jaded, busy, and have too much to lose.

Not them.

They’re young, they’re hopeful, they’re impassioned and enraged.

And they’re all that matter.

They just get older and run the world.

So this is only the beginning.

Watch.

// follow their lead //

@marchforourlives

// from the quote note //