How Kindness and Art Will Lead the Revolution Our World Needs

I belong to Gen X. I grew up on a steady media diet of sarcasm and snark.

We were the punk rock generation: anti-establishment, non-conformist, and indifferent. Of course, generational labels are ridiculous. While my age cohort has many common cultural experiences, the ways each of us was shaped by that culture, mixed with the bespoke lives we’ve lived, means that each of us is different. We, like every other generation, are not monolithic.

In many ways, I fit the stereotype. Snark and sarcasm are my first language. I always have to do things my own way, and I have an initial, visceral distrust of authority figures. I loved punk music in my teens, and I still love the DIY, fuck-the-gatekeepers punk ethos. But I refuse to be indifferent.

We live in a messy world that often feels like it’s one bad decision from becoming a full-blown post-apocalyptic hellscape. We have a lot of problems to solve, and often, our leaders are the ones standing in the way, preventing the real change that needs to…