I've always been envious of others. I freely admit that I succumb regularly to this sin. I won't however do anything towards freeing myself of those envies.
My older sister was a straight-A student. All of my siblings were more popular. My brother was a boy. Other girls' hair didn't tangle as quickly. One of my sisters was a blonde. Those I call friends were always more open than I or had family members that actually cared about them. Others were more athletic. They had better stories to tell or juicy gossip to entrance others with. They knew exactly what they wanted in life. They were better looking. They had better brains. They had a defined talent.
Then, between Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood(FMAB) and Criminal Minds, I realized something: everyone is envious of something. We grow up in a society where we are told to be happy with ourselves but can see those whom we look up to long for the hairstyle of someone else. We are taught that being of a certain look will automatically make one better socially or targeted for social homicide. Being smart wasn't always so great.
As a matter of fact, even during the nineties early two thousands, being so into a piece of fiction like Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Supernatural, or Sherlock made one the perfect target for bullies. But we are informed that it's okay to be whom we are even if it is some overzealous stalking fan who may eventually kill. We are taught that going to the extreme of killing someone is wrong. Sometimes, as an adult, I envy today's children.
They will likely not be raised to Sabrina, the Teenage Witch; Matlock; Diagnosis Murder; or Power Rangers the way I had been. But the teasing and dissing of what they enjoy won't be as bad either. They'll easily find others who enjoy the same things as them due to social media online, but they'll lose that face-to-face interaction that brings about local book clubs and coffee dates(though I despise coffee!) Children of today's world aren't raised with the story lines we had. The shows for younger children seem almost above intelligence for their age, and then for the teens, below intelligence levels.
With how we've become severely"do not offend" and "keep things politically correct (PC)" at least in America, it seems our entertainment is taking it to one extreme or the other, and that's not always a good thing. It just feels as though things aren't the same, and while that's good, on the whole I am not as envious of the next generation as I had thought.
Sure they've got awesome paraphernalia for their fandoms and more ways than ever to keep themselves entertained, but now the corporations are able to connect all of the ways you keep information electronically which makes it a hell of a lot easier to target a person for identity theft. I've already seen instances in folks my own age trying and failing to do the simple math problems like 29-14 that we had drilled in our heads so much that we could answer thirty of them in a minute without a problem. They can't walk on their own even down the street for fear of the various types of human predators instead of animal and if they want to stay at a friend's? Forget it unless they have all manner of ways to immediately be reached by the parents/guardians. Yes they might have a more tolerant future, but what kind of future is it when they've become slaves to their electronics? They may not know what a picnic is or enjoy a walk in the woods listening to the lake it surrounds. They might not be able to enjoy a trail ride or swim freely at the beach. It's for those reasons that I don't envy them. Because one day, there might not be parks to walk through, beaches to sun on, or woods to wander, I actually pity them.
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