It’s honestly quite a hard pill to swallow as `i start to understand that I am no longer of the times, I’m present and in the present yet my relevance is fading. With every passing day, my grip and grasp on the times gets looser and looser as I get lost, swimming with the current yet drowning in the now, as the present becomes more prevalent.
It’s no longer considered groundbreaking for a thirty-year-old to write a novel or complete an art project, I can’t be deemed a prodigy for doing something that artists are expected to do - create. Essentially I can still make noise, I can still create things that people see and speak about but now I’m competing not just with myself and my contemporaries but with a generation behind me. One that’s more in-tune with how the world will be, while I believe that individuals in their 30’s sum up the way the world is and those older how it was/ how it became.
I think about the last decade at around this time 10 years ago, when I left being a teenage behind and scrambled into my 20’s. I was in a position of power, as the age group a decade behind me were 10-year-olds and those before me were well onwards and up in age. I had vision and optimism and only had to compete with the older generation - all those who came before. Now I’m part of a collective looking at those who come after me.
There’s now a whole generation of individuals that are able to articulate their feelings and thoughts through song, writing, dance etc and reflect a world familiar to me yet unknown in full. Youth in full bloom rebelling against what's normal to them/ what they’ve always known.
The digital world, for example, isn’t a foreign place in which they’ve had to migrate to and integrate, they’re a native and know the language fluently. Individuals who’ve grown up never knowing what it’s like to disconnect and always having this overload/ constant stream of information/ content.
Instagram is no longer the present/ fresh, it’s something known and for some can seem stale. You’ve got the younger gen expressing themselves on Tik Tok. Swathes of kids bored of the stale stiff personas presented to people on Instagram and have now moved on to showcase their personalities.
This means doing dance challenges and comedic takes on contemporary culture. It’s no coincidence that in COVID times Tik Tok has boomed with people looking for an escape from the bleak reality. It’s in a sense the opposite to that of what the influencers of Instagram produce. People who are basically versions of the same using a template that Kim Kardashian has perfected. Instagram is all about showboating! Pretty people, posing next to pretty buildings, eating pretty plates all to create a pretty picture, to sum up, a beautiful lifestyle.
It makes me think of my age when I get but can’t grasp Tik Tok as a channel! I know I’m not young but also I'm not old yet at the same time, I’m not as connected as those behind me who’ve grown up always knowing the things I’ve had to adapt to and therefore have a completely different perspective.
I think of my own 20’s which largely consisted of blurred nights and fast touches instead of the softer and sensual. I wanted to feel and remember everything, yet now I know that not all I live should be remembered and that’s what memories are for and what I use my Instagram for to record, collect and connect.
There I see moments that stand out when and I’m going through a painful phase like now scrolling through my Instagram is like flipping through a photo album, it helps remind me of all those special hours and minutes lost but recorded with people I love and cherish, it still brings a smile to my face even to think about it at this moment as I write.
Now with ten years flown by It’s hard not to think about wasted time but then how was it wasted when I feel I’ve lived? Plus I don’t regret much, as mostly all things are lessons. In any case. I no longer feel I have this power or fire within me that I had when I was 20. It hasn’t been extinguished but it’s been dimmed down to a point where I feel calm and subdued in a sense. In this calmer state. Back then, 10 years ago, I wanted to change the world but now the world has changed me and the way I think, the way I am and the way I act. Essentially impacting on who I’ve become - more subdued.
I’ve become weaker and I’m torn and a bit wore down and burned out by the way the world works, I have no/ less time for individuals who say things and never do, I have become more impatient, as I know more of myself I know I want to know less of certain types of people or places. I’ve started to roll eyes and give deep sighs when people say things I deem dumb.
I’m not perfect and this world is far from that. As I inherited the freedoms fought for by those who came before me. People like myself who were once in chains or killed for loving who they love.
I do believe that the young are the ones that can truly fight to heal this world. One filled with savage economics that brings about a disproportionate amount of inequality. A world that seems to be on self destruct mode as we continue to press buttons that poison the planet.
Then there’s the noise of segregation with the battles, the barriers, the borders all due to the things that divide us that are in truth so small yet seems so big when a point is picked up, pointed out and picked at continually like a scab until it’s bloody and raw, so much so that wars are able to be crafted and created because of it.
All I know is that I want to see a world one day that’s filled with less hate and more love, one where we cherish and understand each other, regardless of race, religion, nationality, sexuality as it still baffles me the way the world worked, the way it was before and the way it is now.
