Today is so different from yesterday
Honestly that statement shouldn't come as a surprise: things do change. The huge mountains of yesterday always become mere hills with passage of time. The big boys of a few years ago also seem to halt for us small kids to catch up in later life. It seems while we grow up, all that while, some things only mark time, waiting for us.
That is also true. But try a history book
When you pick a history book or an account of days of old, reading the exploits of young people in those days of past times, sometimes unbelievably of the same age as we are, and consider their passion and their drive, their motivation and sense of purpose, especially of those seemingly ridiculous ages and the broadness and boldness of the worldview it gives them, admire how and why they acted out their faiths and philosophies, you'd wonder why today's times lack such drive, such motivation, a dose of their sense of purpose. You'd wonder where all that courage went. Where the enthusiasm vanished to. Why nothing as passionate as theirs is seen in those of our times.
You'd wonder why. And it comes crushing down into your awareness just as soon as you did. Time has had its way. Things have changed. New passions have arrived, they have taken centre stage in the scheme of things.
Young people all over the world, not only in poor countries, seem to lack a sense of motivation, drive, ambition, a personal commitment to any important belief these days. Educators are complaining about the falling standards of education; experts concerned with intelligence wonder where the prodigies are; religious people ask what is going on: is the fear of God lost on today's child?
How can Loose be cool?
Kids today want to identify loosely with important ideas the same way the change designer labels of shoes and shirts. Ideas just become cool for a season and then melt off for another cool one to gain ground. Nothing really lasts enough to make kids brood over, be passionate about, except their hopelessly unimportant.
So it's just cool these days for them to be part of a fan club, whether it's to idolize some freaky hairstyle or an idol without really knowing what they're getting into, the same way addicts loosely hang on to drugs as if their very lives dependent upon them.
The fear of God is lost on us; right and wrong don't mean a thing. Many young people are stuck on drugs, prostitution, perverting their ways, having no use for morals or good behaviour. Parents are never really there to know what is happening, running after this job, or that contract, as if their only duty on earth was to make babies when young and chase money all their lives till death puts them to sleep.
Father figures? Zero!
Broken homes have come to stay. Some kids grow up with only a single parent or move from one relative to another, like insects in search of nectar, without a place to call home, as if they begged to be brought into this world. It's pathetic what such moving around does to the psychology of the child, bandied about like an unwanted gift, a casualty of life.
With the normalizing of divorce and single-mindedness, many huge childhood mountains take more time in turning into small hills with age. Thanks to irresponsible parenting prodigies are endangered, options for potential future leaders are in desperate decline. Real heroes for today's child are nonexistent. Good stories are old and hardly told, some new ones are bad, stuffed with demonic, evil-contented ideas, polluting those who read, idolizing things that don't count, churning out pockets of zombied followers.
Unfortunately this hasn't been helped in the least with a lot more idolized people - those we call superstars - failing to live up to their status by consciously or unconsciously accenting to evil ideas, dropping loose hints that bad is good, good is bad.
No big dream
Gone are those days when kids wanted to be a presidents, doctors, something nice and decent or useful when they grew up. These days, in between the cartoons and the video games, the many useless DVDs, they hardly have room to think about the future.
It is not their fault. Children no longer have the luxury of a complete family setting, to sit around family tables and build a family bond, shape their minds, give them fresh ideas, things taken for granted years ago. After school is homework time, followed by a trip into their zombied world of video games and a million and one gismos available to teach nothing useful.
I cannot blame a child today for being uninterested in good morals or not having stronger faith, self-confidence or the appetite to dream big. If only would-be parents cared just a little bit, perhaps they'd spend more quality time planning for, making and grooming their future kids.
It's over to you, if you just started out. Today might be worse than yesterday but tomorrow could be better.
