Once, and even still, the idea of another time and place intrigued me.
And why shouldn’t it?

We call it Fiction. Escapism. Fantasy…and it sells. Because on days like today, we all want to be where we aren’t. On weeks like this, we all want a romantic spin on what would otherwise be torrid daily affairs.
I used to wonder why I had to live in what felt to be such a static time period- at a young age, nothing seemed to be happening to me, so history seemed to not be happening at all.

Contrasting my day to day existence were my grandparent’s stories who survived the infamous era of dust bowls and World Wars, followed by my parents who lived through a summer of love, the birth of rock & roll, AND all the best Steven Spielberg movies.

They wrote love letters. They sported shoulder pads. And from the eyes of my youth, I thought it to be glamorous. (Admittedly though, everything tends to be one-dimensional when looking back in hindsight.)

I often wondered: What would my generation’s legacy be? What would we leave behind?
And as I come of age, I’m slowly finding my answer. It turns out that what we are leaving behind is just as bitter and yet perhaps just as glamorous:

We will be known for smart phones, mass-terrorism, and a dumbass president.
In reading the news, each day it feels as though the world is closing in on us, one small crumble at a time. And I realize now more than ever that the glossy pages of a history book do well to cover up the fact that this country has been through hell, and yet succinctly made its way back to the flames.

We live in a putrescent society where civilians are shot down, blown up, or completely washed away by the dozen- and the person in charge would rather glibly tap volatile tweets than adequately address worldly issues.

Yet despite all that, I live a happy life as any other young college student. Depressing headlines and an unfortunate upshift in avocado prices aside, my day to day existence has met no compromise. In fact, it appears our lives in and of themselves are rarely compromised at all. North Korea threatens to bomb us and we make jokes about it. 500+ people are hospitalized because of gun violence and all we can do is pray. Is that the American dream? Or is that just the human condition? We plod on, and ultimately we persist as we always have regardless of external factors and trends. It is the ultimate duality.

In the words of Melville, let us “strike through the mask.” I know that we see more than we let ourselves feel. But let us change. Let us live with one foot in front of the other, taking each tangible piece of the past, and using it as a model for the future. Our generation does not have to be subjugated to a remembrance of futility.