With the promise of youth comes the mindset that success and invincibility will decorate one’s long and fruitful life. Our skin has not yet been traced with wrinkles, our joints remain quiet when rubbed together, and our brains are pink with the flush of youth. As children, we are told by wise adults that we can do anything we set our minds to. Before long, we become those “wise” adults, and impart that same advice to our children because we don’t want them to miss out on the same opportunities that we ourselves, let pass by.
For twelve years, we spend between twelve to fourteen thousand hours in a severely flawed education system. Here, we are spoon-fed vocabulary words, equations, poor social skills, and tasteless food for thought. We learn things only to forget them. While being prepped for “the real world,” we are handed test scores that determine our limits boldly. Our peers and society tell us that “the dream life” is handed to us in a pretty package and includes a tedious job, parasitic kids, an aloof spouse, death, and taxes. When Joss Whedon told 785 eager undergraduates, on the day of their commencement, that, “you are all going to die,” he said something not too many people enjoy talking about. The truth is, it’s going to happen. I think that Whedon provoked that itch in everyone’s mind, the one that asks, “Is this truly worth it?” Throughout the speech, he goes on to offer words of encouragement by saying, “To accept duality is to earn identity. And identity is something that you are constantly earning. ... Peace comes from the acceptance of the part of you that can never be at peace” (Whedon). I think that wondering if “it” is all worth it, “it” being ambiguous, is a part of unraveling one’s identity. What Whedon is ultimately trying to say in his speech is that the desire to do better, to be better, is inherent to human nature.
While limits and expectations succeed in keeping us boxed in, time and time again, there is an insidious foe paralyzing our lives very, quietly: time. The clocks we are ruled by count down, hour by hour. On NPR’s RadioLab, fiction writer Eula Biss spoke of a time when she, a grad student, went to the hospital because of a severe, continuous pain that plagued her body. When asked to rate her pain on a scale of zero to ten, ten being the worst pain imaginable, she could not answer. Instead, her father, who was a doctor, asked her a deadpan question, “Would you accept a shorter life span for the pain to go away?” She answered that she would. Now, Eula says that she is shocked about how her 26-year-old self, answered: “I was 26, and life seems pretty long when you’re that age.” (Biss, NPR) I think this speaks volumes on how younger generations view life.
In his “Speech to Graduates,” Whedon says, “Your body wants to die. On a cellular level, that’s what it wants. And that’s probably not what you want.” Whedon wants to convey the fact that our bodies are organic. They will decompose into some other form of matter. However, we want to do more than fertilize the earth. We have the desire to dream and achieve. When we are young, we are anesthetized by the idea that we have a whole eighty years to accomplish the things we really want to do. Because of this we live the lives we are expected to live and bury our dreams for later. When we’re young, we hide ourselves behind bulletproof hearts and dagger tongues, equating sentiment with solemnity and manipulation with ambition.
When confronted with a daunting statement regarding the imminent concept of death, the brain will work. Perhaps a bucket list comes to mind, maybe a near death experience blurs your vision, or maybe nothing happens. Regardless of how that spongy mass of brain responds, death will meet you one day. You might even be ready for it. We’ve heard it a million times before: “live like you’re dying.” I don’t like that saying. We are dying. There should be no “like” in that sentiment. Live the life you want to be known for, not the one expected of you, because you will die. However, when you’re young, you don’t indulge in the thought of death being on the week’s agenda. That is what I love about youth. With youth comes that glowing, flirtatious idea that an individual can change the world. With youth comes invincibility. When we were little, we wanted to save the world. Maybe we never truly grow up. Maybe we have a superhero complex. With a string of poetic words and a melody, lives can be saved. With inspirational words and a microphone, the world can change.
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