Sophistication - did it crawl in a hole and bury itself? Have we lost touch with the concept? Do we no longer want to be engaged, intellectual, connected? Why do we no longer appreciate complexity in our lives? What does it even mean to be sophisticated?

Why do we believe Twitter is a credible news source? Why are we more concerned about when Kylie Jenner is going to release a new lip color and less concerned about who won the presidential debate – and more importantly, what was said in it? Why do we believe that having an opinion makes you a know-it-all? Why are we content with saying “I don’t know” more than saying “I think that…”?

What happened to getting to know someone beneath the surface? Why is “afraid” our default emotion when we meet someone different? What happened to meeting someone in person instead of “sliding into their DMs”? What happened to caring about a person and not what that person can offer you?

Why aren’t we curious anymore? Why is it that when the professor asks if anyone has a question, the majority of the classroom tries to avoid eye contact? What happened to wanting to know how this contraption worked, why this event happened, who this person was in their time? What happened to having so many questions it made your head spin?

Why are we encouraged to fit into one box? Why can’t we be this and that? Why do we feel the need to shrink ourselves, to make ourselves unnoticeable? Why would we rather feel average than empowered, or even at sometimes, helpless? Why do we run from change and discomfort before making the effort to be at peace with either?

These aren’t the only questions I limit myself to either, sadly I can say I’ve been guilty of almost all of them at one point or another. When we look back at our society and the way it’s changed in all aspects- technology, relationships, travel, politics, health, do we try to figure out how we got here? Or do we stay ignorant towards it all?

Sophistication, in my opinion, is complexity. In that complexity is rarity. It’s rare we find people who are sophisticated, who are complex. It’s rare we find people who know that to be sophisticated is not a matter of societal or monetary status. Sophistication is the result of experience and educated, never limited by imagination and a willingness to discover and change and grow. Sophistication- did it bury itself or are we responsible for its death?