Many a revolution has been sparked by and carried by the Youth. Youth are fortunate because they have a wonderful spirit of rebellion (however misguided) coupled with no burden of responsibility or consequence. A youth can therefore have the potential to “change” the world.
Being a youth does not automatically mean that you will in fact change the world; it only means that you have the potential to do so. Having potential is by no means a guarantee that you will actually DO anything of great significance; it simply means that you have the latent excellence to achieve greatness [potential is latent excellence ∙ let that marinate].
The marker of youth is rebellion; for what is a youth without defiance of accepted moral codes or social conventions? Defiance is not as heavy an issue as trying to overthrow a government or a societal system. It could be a quest to better your immediate life existence; like the creation of new technologies as a way of making life simpler or improving communication.
Here we have a youth that is contented. How do you breed new ideas without restlessness or discontentment? The problem inherent in living in a world where you have access to excess is that you never reach a point of displeasure. You are numbed out by your affluence and material prosperity. You believe the world revolves around you and your desires. You have no future needs. All your immediate needs are satisfied by the push of a button.
The business of living however requires you to be much more proactive than pushing a button. The Youth of ’76 were dissatisfied with the perceived contentment of the adults in their midst through passive resistance to Apartheid. They had a goal they set out to achieve.
Here we are in a world that promises us a blinging life of success if we make it on a Vuzu Reality TV show. We aim to film our daily activities (not much at that) to compile them into a package we can sell on TV or at the very least, become YouTube famous. And we apply this same set of principles to our world of study: we show up to classes looking fly, sitting into lectures so we can tweet about how dope∙ly we are getting on with our fascinating education. But we do not glamorously do any tasks or assignments; we simply hope that being in a class will translate to future fabulosity in that BMW M3.
If you follow enough Youth on Twitter you will notice your timeline soon strewn with comments of “boredom”. Tedium is a state, not an activity. There is this resounding expectation that someone will come and pluck you out of your boredom. If you do not get up and shake off this view of life you ARE likely to take your own life for the manifestation of your own failure.
- Do rebel against this state of listlessness
- DO rebel against apathy and indifference
- DO rebel
Amandla Awethu Broer [*shoutout to KOTN]
Photographer / Karabo Ngoatle
