I hate young people!
So having set out my stall, I need to explain why.
First, their enthusiasm. It's unnatural. Given what they have to contend with they should be suicidal (many are), yet they insist on being positive, loving and generally good natured.
How do you explain this? For them money's tight as is housing, the future appears bleak and they find themselves confronted by a generation ("My Generation") who having sucked up all the benefits now are intent of snatching away any future.
A few, a very few are angry, but in the main the younger generation appear to be happy to let us "baby boomers" continue to make fools of ourselves. Going to '60's revival concerts with our zimmer frames and hearing aids and mumbling "Do you remember?". I suppose they're expecting that falling down terrace house in Battersea, bought in 1979 for #1000 and now worth the crown jewels will pass down to them - so they can just about pay off their student loans.
It is so unfair. The thing is their parents, or grand parents have taken out a life time mortgage so they can continue the good life. There'll be fuck all after 8% interest rate rolls up over 15 years.
Then again, if you're young everything's possible. You may live in a housing sink, with a completely stressed out mother and don't do school but you can be a Lewis Hamilton or a Premier League player earning half a million a week. Or you can find yourself at Halfords earning minimum wage and living with your parents 'cause property is so far out of reach.
Youth has a newish body. You can feel the energy, the pulse the minute you wake up in the morning. You are alive, your shape is cool, it's toned and you keep it that way. Your Instagram account pesters you 'cause there's so many out there - friends? - who comment on your short comings. There's so many sites that can get you into shape. But hey, you do look good and you feel well, mentally and physically. And the world's out there!
Except it isn't. How long have you got. 50 years before climate change means mass migration, mass starvation, "Interstellar" doesn't look so far fetched. And you, along with billions of others can do nothing about it. We're told politicians are tackling climate change, on the other hand it's increasing GDP that they worship. When asked how to square the circle they call on the future, your future, to rescue the present.
Young people, you should be sombre, determined. You should rise up and scream "We Ain't Gonna Take It." And use your energy, strength and irrational optimism to save us from ourselves.
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