Hope and Potential of Our Youth

Many are the signs of a society that is far from healthy. One of the columnists on the education page of the Peace Weekly paints a bleak picture of the kind of persons we find in society. From an early age, we see young people with abnormal mental traits with which they have to struggle. In many, feelings of lethargy in an uneasy society, confusion about identity, extreme lack of self-worth, social awkwardness, selfishness,  greed, no concern for the virtues, frequent violence against the body, lack of communication, addicted to the material, and a paralysis in the emotional life. 

Some of these traits we see in the adult society in which we live, among our leaders and the famous: maintaining one's image, searching for power, wealth and fame.  Many are addicted to drugs, liquor,  eating disorders, killing the person they are, with cosmetic surgery, to resemble the stars. We have the government, federations,  education and leaders in religion who don't see how our environment makes our life possible, and we remain as children.

Men dream of success, and women for the ideal male hero with whom they can spend the rest of their lives. Women also dream of the woman hero, corresponding to men's ambition. We are like people lost in the wilderness not knowing where to go. We wait for God or some magic being to save us.

Westernization of our society has introduced us to sexual maturity, independence, individual fulfillment. We have no inkling on how to discover the spirit and the larger world of nature beyond the self. A few centuries ago, we got rid of the vitality in our lives by our traditional rites of passage, and considered our inner life like so many skins that we could throw off. Today we see what this has done to our young people in the culture we have given birth.

A healthy childhood requires roots in nature and family and  in much of our culture, we find this missing. The young have become sexual objects.  We are failing in the formation of queenly like women,  and instead  from an early age, we celebrate beauty pageants. 

However, if the youth with an understanding of   mental and spiritual  adventure: remember why they were  born, what gifts they have to give to the world, and the sanctity that rests within, they will know the road that is laid out before them. Characteristics of hope and potentiality will do much to integrate the culture with our natural environment and be a beacon to all.