I believe that my generation is one of greatness. We did not stand on the shores of a foreign land and give our lives to overthrow a genocidal dictator. We did not fight to put an end to segregation, hosed down and beaten in the streets. We were given these things. They are the products of the hard work of our parents and grandparents. We came into this world a generation blessed with plenty. Opportunity was handed to us.
Some call us lazy. We, this generation of geeks, born in the 80’s, clutching atari and nintendo controllers in our sweaty palms. We were never challenged. We saved the world, one continue at a time. Our greatest challenge became eating Cherry Garcia and grinding undead to 60 at the same time.
But out of the misery of the past, we were blessed with a spark of creativity. A brightness in our eyes, and deep down, a desire that told us we could only change the world if we could just get one peek behind that veil of potential that lingers over us like a ghost. It haunts us, demands us to do more, to become more.
The greatest enemy of my generation is apathy. We possess the inate desire to be something greater than ourselves, to leave a mark, to put our stamp on the world and say, “Here I am. I changed the rules. I made this. I accomplished this.” But instead, we linger. We work our dead end call center jobs, and play our treadmill MMO’s, and buy the latest iJunk to fill in that gap. We try to silence that still, small voice that screams inside of us to do more.
There lies only two choices to deal with this screaming. Ignore it for the rest of your life, until it burns out, like a candle sputtering its last, or take charge. Stand up and fight as if you were being murdered. Apathy is a subtle knife. It kills just as much as cigarettes and cholesterol. But those things can only take your life. Apathy eats at your soul.
In man, there exsists an undeniable need to create. To forge his own path. By resisting this urge, the essence of who you are, and who you could become, rots away slowly. You can’t change the world all at once. But take that first step. If you write, write. If it’s one page a day, write. If you draw, do that. Whatever you do, whatever that tiny voice in your head is screaming at you to do, listen. You will never have the time to do it until you make the time to do it right now. Success or failure lies in your hands.
Without your action, there will never be another Star Wars or Spiderman, or Lord of the Rings. The forefathers of geekdom are getting old, or they’ve lost their way. The few of us that have stood up and defied the storm of apathy aren’t enough to hold back the flood. Take charge, and revolutionize the way our generation is seen.
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