Writer's Note: As you can see by the post dates, I took most of 2018 off. I focused more on my fiction writing and less on commenting about the current state of our world. However, I felt it was necessary to finally get some of these thoughts/comments/opinions out there for all to see. Here's one of the first ones (see below) for last year.
February 20, 2018 - It's been about a week since the Parkland school shooting in South Florida. As expected, the Internet has been crazed regarding another mass shooting, mental health, bullying, and Second Amendment rights.
For the most part, I've tried to stay away from the constant online bickering. A couple of days ago this meme showed up in my Facebook (FB) feed. It was shared by a high school friend and "Liked" by another high school friend. (Personal note - I was never close to either one of these "friends" in high school nor am I close with them now.)
Aside from the fact that this is another FB post from an unknown source about an unknown situation with unknown circumstances - think Russian troll - I was struck by the lack of compassion that this one "friend" had regarding this horrible mass killing.
Regardless of politics and regardless of age, we need to remember that children today are growing up with stress and anxiety that far outweigh anything my generation - or earlier generations - had to deal with. Each generation has its share of challenges and problems, but I would argue that no generation prior to fifteen or twenty years ago (Note: the 20-year anniversary of the Columbine shooting is April 20, 2019) had to worry about being killed - shot - while at school.
Have we really become so jaded that we say high school students are wimps because they believe in banning assault-style weapons? Are we so tone deaf that we wonder aloud why so many young people - 18 years and under - need meds to cope with today's realities?
Online, people from my generation - like these two high school "friends" - sound just like our grandparents back in the day. Kids nowadays are soft and spoiled. In my day. we....
We used to make fun of our parents and grandparents. How clueless they were. Now, we've become them!
In your day no one feared being slaughtered with a machine gun or blown to bits by a car bomb.
What happened to our compassion?
Sad.
February 20, 2018 - It's been about a week since the Parkland school shooting in South Florida. As expected, the Internet has been crazed regarding another mass shooting, mental health, bullying, and Second Amendment rights.
For the most part, I've tried to stay away from the constant online bickering. A couple of days ago this meme showed up in my Facebook (FB) feed. It was shared by a high school friend and "Liked" by another high school friend. (Personal note - I was never close to either one of these "friends" in high school nor am I close with them now.)
Aside from the fact that this is another FB post from an unknown source about an unknown situation with unknown circumstances - think Russian troll - I was struck by the lack of compassion that this one "friend" had regarding this horrible mass killing.
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| Special troll meme. |
Have we really become so jaded that we say high school students are wimps because they believe in banning assault-style weapons? Are we so tone deaf that we wonder aloud why so many young people - 18 years and under - need meds to cope with today's realities?
Online, people from my generation - like these two high school "friends" - sound just like our grandparents back in the day. Kids nowadays are soft and spoiled. In my day. we....
We used to make fun of our parents and grandparents. How clueless they were. Now, we've become them!
In your day no one feared being slaughtered with a machine gun or blown to bits by a car bomb.
What happened to our compassion?
Sad.
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