Maybe it is the time of year or recent events. It might even be a combination of both that compels this collection of thoughts. 2016 was the year of the reaper, but it feels like we lost more than just celebrities. It feels like we lost our country, purpose, and place in the world.
I was truly saddened by the loss of Carrie Fisher and George Michael. I never knew either of them, but the loss of them has made me think. Princess Leia was the first Star Wars action figure my late grandma ever purchased for me. I played a ton of George Michael records on the radio over the years. I still think Freedom '90 is one of the best videos ever made. Video. Another thing that seems lost.
The other night I was glued to, "Definitely Maybe." It's one of my favorite Ryan Reynolds movies, but it really focuses on the 90s. The time of the first Clinton Presidency and a time where it felt like the world truly had no limits. People still believed that they could be anything and little was holding them back. A lot of us just remember it as middle or high school.
It was certainly a different time. The fear of job loss wasn't as big of a deal. Maybe I was just too young see that though. It felt like my parents had more money and their dollars stretched a lot farther. I think a lot of people's seemed to. We were a generation of kids poised to change the world for the better. Clinton was a president that actually talked to the youth of a nation. We went to college. We got involved in issues. We took a stand when it was the right thing to do. We broke barriers and focused on ourselves, but still found ways to help other people. We did it all to one of the greatest soundtracks in the history of music. The 90's era was the best for music. It just was. Things felt like they were together. These days it feels like everything is coming a part.
Don't get me wrong. The 90's were filled with some things that we should regret. The Rodney King beating is still just as disgusting today as it was then. So are the riots that followed. It might've been the lack of social media, but it felt like those horrible things made u grow for the better. It feels like the incidents of racial violence now just tear us further apart. I was always fortunate to be taught to see past color. I never thought at this stage of my life that our country would be this divided over skin tones. Back then, we looked to the future with hope and now it seems to be replaced by fear.
It feels like we as a people have lost our spirit. We stopped focusing on our own backyards and condemned other people for not doing what we as individuals wanted. It used to be that people were allowed to be different. Some were artsy, some jocks, some alternative, and it seemed to work. You might've been laughed at for being last picked, but it didn't hurt or lead to harm. It was accepted that not everyone wins the game and there were no participation trophies. I am still not sure that those help with self esteem.
We are more connected now than ever, but we seem to have lost sight of what is in front of us. It happens almost everywhere. News stories come from following D list celebrities. Radio stations are force fed from Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, or wherever. People have ignored their own lives to follow someone else's. The sad thing is that we probably have not hit the lowest point yet. The good thing is once you are at the bottom, the only place to go is up.
A new year is on the horizon. I hope that we become a little more self aware. I hope we take a look at our own back yard first. I hope we spend less time sending pictures of our own lives and actually doing something with them. I hope that protests become peaceful and the world becomes tolerant. It has been said that everything is cyclical. If that is the case, maybe adopting the ideas of the past can build a brighter future.
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