authenticity.

it is hard to be authentic when those who remind you who you are live thousands of miles away. those that keep you grounded and humble don't see you every day. it is hard to not want to recreate yourself in front of new people who could be impressed by your first impression. how do you prevent yourself from letting go of those deep roots for something more liberating, something more exhilarating? something that...isn't you?

such is the plight of a 20-something in a new city post-graduation working for two drastically different employers. starbucks and americorps. what a freaking dichotomy. i guess you could say i am confused. i spend the morning making triple venti non-fat extra hot lattes for soccer moms and executives with blue-rays in their ears, and then do my best to figure out how to get one of my teens to go to school every day. who barely have enough money to buy ramen noodles for dinner.

so the people i work with, naturally, have their disparities as well. i try my best not to get sucked into the corporate b.s. and the co-worker drama that rampages through our store, and yet it's nearly as addicting as celebrity gossip. or $4 lattes. whereas greta, my coworker at teen city, has me all wriled up at school counselors who don't do shit for their students or parents who allow their kids to stay at home to clean house rather than go to school. while we try to convince another teen that he should quit smoking. on days when i work both jobs, i'm more confused than exhausted.

there are a few things i think is wrong with this world. one of them happens to appear exclusively on E! entertainment. obsession with youth and beauty and weight and celebrity; while teens starve themselves, or binge, cut, purge and HATE what they see in the mirror. an idea that money is happiness, that YOU TOO can look like a star if you just drop your next two paychecks on some lipo and acrylics. people will notice you if you have a fast car and a big house and big boobs and a big freaking latte. then, you will be worth something.

the teens at my site sit in a circle and text each other. they text people who aren't there. they show each other past text conversations. all the while listening to some random punk band on their i-pod shuffle. well, some of them do. the others couldn't possibly afford all that. but some of them still manage to have D.S's. they all play rock band and guitar hero. when i asked our 11-year-olds what was the best part of their winter break, they ALL, every single one of them, mentioned a game system or electronic that they received as a present. what. the. hell. are we teaching these children???

people in americorps are starting a book group, and our first book is called "the last child in the woods". supposedly it is about children losing their connection with the outdoors. after spending an entire summer out of doors, i'm excited to know what this book has to say. my initial thoughts, based on my experiences, are that youth are losing all ability to socialize. authentically. they cannot possibly know how to talk to one another--to truly communicate--when 50% of their "conversations" are texts. apparently, one of my teens is dating someone that he has only texted--they've never met face-to-face. how does that even constitute as a relationship?

i have a lot against which to rant. but mostly, i wish that kids could be outdoors laughing and interacting, instead of being given electronics that inhibit socialization and real mental stimulation. and that lack anything remotely close to physical activity. nothing in these teens' lives encourages them to be authentic. they can be whoever they want to be in a text. they can be perverted or sarcastic and as "bold" as they wish, because they are only superficially held accountable for their "words". and lacking any sort of relationship-building interactions, they can remain detached and unaffected by the people around them. we are creating an entire generation of bubble-children.

i sometimes wonder how it is that i can spend so much time mindlessly on facebook. how i can waste 20 minutes just flipping through profiles or looking at what someone wrote to someone else. it's absurd. i wonder how i let myself settle for such mundane mental activities. more and more i am reading and knitting and writing to use my brain more often. to demand more from it. but there is so much waste. and i am so easily unentertained. when did i begin to expect less from activities that were supposed to entertain me? how did i let the bar go so low? when will we see how detrimental this internet-coma is to our society?

this only scratches the surface of my worries for this next generation, and for our world as a whole.