Out in a ravine with friends today, I couldn't help reminiscing about years aback when beautiful fantasies ruled my life like every other kid as I basked in the euphoria of nature's awesomeness, those years I would often dream of finishing school and being independent at 21, stacking money and balling 'til 24 when I would have met the missing part of my heart, taking that part of my heart down the aisle and building family at 25. Life was definitely gon' be all-smooth with no rocks pricking the soles of my feet, so I thought, so I fantasized.
Fast-forward into the reality of this moment as I near 23, that kid has graduated but is lost, unemployed and confused, dependent and depressed, losing more cash than gaining, stayed out of a relationship longer than he's stayed in. No light seems to be shining at the end of the tunnel, probably 'cause the only light that came my way was the one I'd slid past at the mouth of the tunnel just after childhood into this darkness that leaves me blind and deaf from listening to the familiar hum of deep silence.
Damn when older folks say we're the fortunate generation! Okay, it's okay to accept learning has gotten easier and the world has been made smaller in our time thanks to technology. But, hasn't getting employed gotten harder and competition even stiffer with this supposed easiness that eventually robes us with uneasiness as we age? Isn't it weird that how violent our men can go racks more cash than their talents? It doesn't break your heart to think the bodies of our ladies sell more than their abilities? Fuck!
"Get a degree child!" You do.
"No, that's not enough kid, learn a trade!" You do.
"Do this girl, do that boy." You have.
What else? What next? Betters your chances when there are millions already hanging on to that slim thread of survival in the field of your expertise, all hoping and believing they'd be the chosen one, the one with enough yes-factors to sew that cloak of accomplishment from the evading fabric of success and slim thread we all are holding on to.
Rewind decades and some of us would be Professors, famous entertainers, popular writers, on-demand photographers,great politicians...
Fast-forward to these times where talent or capabilities hardly count we're nobody, no thanks to the fact we've only added to the sea of already-talented multitude with similar abilities hoping to swim through the clustered waters - dammed by older folks - to the shores of success.
It's easy for old folks to sit back on their comfy chairs and tag us bad, and maybe they have a point too. But, how are we ever not gon' be bad when they've kept all the good things to themselves and left us out in the coldness of the dark? What the devil is the way forward for this generation in a country where a grandpa who should be worried about just surviving longer has the reins of government in his hands to toy with whilst we lose tiny bits of our sanity to the hardships in the land from the results of his joke? Take a peek at any average man around you over 70 and you'd understand this is no mere jabber but a call for action.
Revolution is what we need! We can't soar as a country when old and weary folks who need to be steered on steer the vibrant ones instead, 'cause consequently we'd trip or bump into poles their blur eyes couldn't see, or crash on obstacles their weary hands couldn't steer away from. It's not about waring though, albeit I fear we're nearing that monster.
"I am fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in," the words of George McGovern, which I beg to borrow.
Well 'cause just like Bertrand Russell once said, "War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
Do you believe in seeing any light at the end of this dark tunnel of a country? Sorry, 'cause I think I lost mine before I got tunneled. We just got to grope on in the dark further however, farther enough until we can have a taste of the success they ain't ready to let us share in, hoping to go past the greedy old bodies before us clogging the light in peace, or tear to pieces our barriers to Success Town. Change in the realness of that word is what we need - not the APC kind of change please. Revolution is the key.
Old folks leading us astray should not forget these words of John F. Kennedy, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
