“Thinking about the future can be menacing to a youth who is born into an age in which all one hears is the countdown to the end of the climate as we know it. Along with this, hatred, violence, and passivity are normalised, ignorance is sought and decay is the new proper. If one tends to think of the future as a projection of their current reality, how can one preserve their will to shape their own future, or to live at all?
I myself have wondered, why to even think about a career if science tells us that in a few decades, nothing is going to be the same anyways. How can I think of having children when my time is right if the fear of not having water on Earth is real? To this, I say that I have taken a leap of faith and continue to do so.
A more cynical person may laugh at me, and I probably laugh at myself too when I am in a bad mood, but in my daily life, I go on and literally just hope for the best. More so during this pandemic, when nothing can be predicted, my friends ask me about how I stay motivated and positive in life. As the maxim goes, to this I say “know thyself”. When everything around me is a crisis on a global scale, the best I can do is to continue becoming who I am. When nothing around me is steady, I am steady for myself, and when nothing around me is comprehendible, I try to comprehend myself.
When I think of the future, I don't necessarily think of something bleak but I definitely don’t have an idealised version of it either. Like mostly everybody, I have dreamt of world peace, of the end of hunger and poverty, of equity between sentient beings and all that, but now I know that these feats will not be accomplished in my lifetime, if ever. Now, if I were to idealise a future within my lifetime, I don’t dream of world peace, or of the end of poverty. I dream for a population of far-sighted, united, people who are not afraid to change, and of change. Personally, I am exhausted by the mindset which expects for the situation to better itself within the systems we have in place. It seems like a decaying conversation to me.”
(Maya Khan, Kathmandu)
#TheFutureIWant
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