On Being Young

The world has done us wrong. Its canines have bit into us, chewed us up, and swallowed us whole. The spit of its lips stings like acid on skin. The tensors of its past—the elaborate churnings of its food chain—have tightened on our nostrils; we’re suffocated. In the current state of its economy, we could work all our lives and go nowhere with it. We are the youth.

I am about to graduate, and through the murky nights, stretched out on my bed, I ponder the question of what to do next. It’s not an easy question. Who am I, what must I do? The question unspools with ease. Its tentacles reach out into the depths of my mind, fishing pointless thoughts. They surface and subside. I go to sleep groping the thought-bubbles that remain.

I’m not alone. Having taken a few gap years, I’ve watched keenly from a distance. I’ve seen my friends go into jobs and get treated poorly. They don’t get paid enough. They work for a bad boss. They work in environments that don’t value them. They are overworked. Usually, it’s some combination of these four. Often, it is all four. I want to say no to the jobs that I know would drain me. But what choices do I have? I majored in a discipline that doesn’t hire. I have family. Who is to look after them?

This world has done us wrong.

Yes, it is sometimes bearable. I watch a movie that refreshes my day. The scenes run in my head, painting my day bright. I prance about smiling. I run into a friend who is like a breath of fresh air. I hum a catchy song. I smack my lips after steaming chai. But these things are passersby. They rise and fall as smoothly as mirages. They are not part of my everyday life. They are a distraction from the everyday. And I must always return.

Do I ask for too much—a job I like, a job that pays decently, a job that doesn’t overwork me, a boss I respect, and coworkers who are fun and mature? I don’t think so. These aren’t too much of an ask. They are the bare minimum. However, the reality of the world is that getting any one of these is a privilege. Today, the world perplexes me. Where has our species moved?

Thousands and thousands of years ago, we hunted and gathered for survival. We roamed the plains in search of rivers, fruits, tubers, and meat. Someone found out we could sow seeds, we could raise cattle, we could settle down. For the sake of security, we built walls, we invented arms, we guarded our lands from the wild. We expanded. Our cities grew into countries, and our countries into nations. Our needs called for a vast complex of work, so we split it amongst ourselves. We made rules. We governed our activity. Some of us laid roads, built houses, grew food, or cooked it. Others gathered water, trained the young, hunted, or laid drainage. This is how we built the world.

Sometimes, it seems we’ve succeeded as a species. We are secure. We have resources. But what have we truly made of it? We remain divided, fighting amongst ourselves, drawing borders around us. We hurt and kill one another. We are no longer fulfilled by the dying of hunger; we want the satiation of greed. We lay dormant in our beds, craving a pixelated significance, drenched in envy. Although there is ample available, we’ve handed it all to a few, allowing the rest to suffer and starve. The rest of us are in a wild limbo. We flail and scream, never noticed. We are overworked for the sake of progress. A kind of progress that has brought us to the brink of environmental collapse. I could endure today’s hardships if tomorrow held even a glimmer of hope—but even that has been taken away. If the journey brings no joy, and the destination offers no hope, then what is the point of it all?

Every day I rise from bed and open a black box that pulls me into a reality so foreign I question whether it’s real. We are debating genocide like a sport. Each scroll is another reality. Here is a recipe for your family, wildfires spreading in Greece, be in tune for the World Cup Semi-Finals, power outage leads to a death toll of twenty, you definitely should try this new brand of shampoo, why aren’t you going to the gym, read this books to take command over your life, we found an exoplanet which could harbour life, a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, mass displacement in Sudan, smell of war’s in the air, etc…

This isn’t the world I built. This is the world given to me. I am haunted silently by the questions that ring in my ears, and there is no way to stop it. The haunting seeps out through my fingers onto the screen; I am related to the world only by the halo of an internet server.

We are all trying, and a lot of us are failing. And into the hologram world, we run as free (and as unreal) as flying horses.

I run from family because its walls constrict. They strangle. Family judges. It is unkind. But often we don’t have a stable source of love and care anywhere else. Where am I to go? So, we run back to the family, only to realise they are going to hurt again. It is an endless cycle. Some get lucky and run into found families. A lot of us don’t.

One of my favourite things to witness is friends becoming family. The friends you make at college, they end up becoming your family, your confidants. It is safe here. They are kind. We are going to be uncles and aunts of each other’s children. My hope is that we don’t become the kind of relatives that we hated.

Ah, but I deviate!

Here, where I live, in the meandering forests of Academia, you have to grind. If you don’t, you will be left behind. That is what we’re told. There is so much that goes on at this campus. And there is not enough time to do them all. One has to constantly miss out on things. That is the reality of things.

At the end of the day, all I desire, I think, is to wake up and not rush. I want to wake up slowly, get my cup of chai, inhale its sweet scent, listen to music for half an hour before I start the day, and stroll to work. After I come back from work, I want to have enough time—some time—to hang out with my friends or watch my favourite shows. On weekends, I want to sleep. I want to make enough to do things and enjoy time with my friends. I want to make enough to watch new movies in the theatre. I want enough time. I want leisure.

Being youngcollege studentidentitypoliticsYouth 2025