I'm delighted that Courtney recommended my favorite book of hers, "Do It Anyway"! It's a truly outstanding "profiles in courage" for any generation. I gave it as required reading to my 4 grandchildren, now in their 20's. Please everybody check it out and be as inspired as everyone I know who takes it seriously. DD
How I’ve waxed nostalgic lately for the days when I campaigned for Nader, when I believed the election of George W was the worst disaster that could befall democracy (I now have some unfortunate perspective in relativity), when I showed up for the Iraq War protests and felt a sense of agency.
I work with teachers — and I used to teach Gen Z — and I do see them creating and building and I also feel this crushing deflating feeling when I see them trying to find meaning in a world. And I hear and grapple with 56% of youth feeling “humanity is doomed” from climate change.
I also see the value of leaning into the tangible. And the purpose in it. The relationships. The 7 nearest starlings in the murmuration. I think it is essential and existential to connect with the owl 🦉 - with more-than-human nature - too. Lean into the perspective of place and plants 🌱 and other species that have more evolved perspectives.
I'm surely not Gen Z but surely septuagenarian. I feel we can still see the good in people and do our best to be the best we can be despite the challenges which seem to be crazier each day. Each of us can make a difference by simply looking for good while understanding at times the converse is all too present.
When I was 21 I definitely thought people with their hearts in the right place could assemble the tools to change things in a positive way.
While I think it is essential for most young people to feel they have people, friends, with whom they can connect, I think being there for ones buddies doesn't necessarily translate into working in a more outward-facing way for change. In fact there are very anti-social ways of life built around cadres of people of whatever age living with a sense of standing together against the world.
My own kids range from mid-twenties to mid-thirties, but whatever the age, all the way through agedness, the best way I have found to explore the differences one can make is to start doing something that obviously makes a difference. This is what I would encourage in the young. And then one can expand from there.
I think one issue in exposure to media, celebrity, and so forth is that splashy effectiveness, big works, is for many young people all they think of as worthy of aspirations.
I cannot remember the author from whom I got this image but she wrote about continuing to attend to the minnows, which may end up eventually tracing the outline of a whale. But the project of minnows has to include attending to more than ones own circle.
Absolutely. This is an underdeveloped point here, but one I was trying to make in the end. If you feel grounded in your circle, if you are good to your people, it feels far easier to be wise and active in wider circles of communities and among a wider range of issues than those that only have self-interest for you.
There are also somewhat disconnected people who find their communities through service rather than prior to service. Finding a community in which to feel grounded may not be prerequisite to reaching out to serve others, to stand in the gap. One can find ones people but also ones footing in the world by first stepping into service.
I'm delighted that Courtney recommended my favorite book of hers, "Do It Anyway"! It's a truly outstanding "profiles in courage" for any generation. I gave it as required reading to my 4 grandchildren, now in their 20's. Please everybody check it out and be as inspired as everyone I know who takes it seriously. DD
Thank you for this. ❤️🙏
How I’ve waxed nostalgic lately for the days when I campaigned for Nader, when I believed the election of George W was the worst disaster that could befall democracy (I now have some unfortunate perspective in relativity), when I showed up for the Iraq War protests and felt a sense of agency.
I work with teachers — and I used to teach Gen Z — and I do see them creating and building and I also feel this crushing deflating feeling when I see them trying to find meaning in a world. And I hear and grapple with 56% of youth feeling “humanity is doomed” from climate change.
I also see the value of leaning into the tangible. And the purpose in it. The relationships. The 7 nearest starlings in the murmuration. I think it is essential and existential to connect with the owl 🦉 - with more-than-human nature - too. Lean into the perspective of place and plants 🌱 and other species that have more evolved perspectives.
I love this pairing of the starlings and the owl. What a perfect set of metaphors.
I'm surely not Gen Z but surely septuagenarian. I feel we can still see the good in people and do our best to be the best we can be despite the challenges which seem to be crazier each day. Each of us can make a difference by simply looking for good while understanding at times the converse is all too present.
I just posted to notes a bit of brilliance from your post.
It’s all real—the depravity and the life-affirmation, the distrust and the ride-or-die-ness, the shallowness and the deepness.
Thanks for such encouraging, believable advice.
Thank you Linda!
When I was 21 I definitely thought people with their hearts in the right place could assemble the tools to change things in a positive way.
While I think it is essential for most young people to feel they have people, friends, with whom they can connect, I think being there for ones buddies doesn't necessarily translate into working in a more outward-facing way for change. In fact there are very anti-social ways of life built around cadres of people of whatever age living with a sense of standing together against the world.
My own kids range from mid-twenties to mid-thirties, but whatever the age, all the way through agedness, the best way I have found to explore the differences one can make is to start doing something that obviously makes a difference. This is what I would encourage in the young. And then one can expand from there.
I think one issue in exposure to media, celebrity, and so forth is that splashy effectiveness, big works, is for many young people all they think of as worthy of aspirations.
I cannot remember the author from whom I got this image but she wrote about continuing to attend to the minnows, which may end up eventually tracing the outline of a whale. But the project of minnows has to include attending to more than ones own circle.
Absolutely. This is an underdeveloped point here, but one I was trying to make in the end. If you feel grounded in your circle, if you are good to your people, it feels far easier to be wise and active in wider circles of communities and among a wider range of issues than those that only have self-interest for you.
There are also somewhat disconnected people who find their communities through service rather than prior to service. Finding a community in which to feel grounded may not be prerequisite to reaching out to serve others, to stand in the gap. One can find ones people but also ones footing in the world by first stepping into service.