Old ways won’t open new doors
I’m getting old. And how do I know this? Because when I sit down and listen to what various people younger than me are saying, I can no longer connect with it. Their way of looking at the world, their value systems and what they think is essential are so dissimilar from what I think and feel that, sometimes, I wonder if we have been living on the same planet.
Of course, this is a tale as old as time: every generation that has come and gone has had to struggle to find common ties with the one after it but something which, perhaps, I wasn’t prepared for was their hopelessness and the lack of engagement with social issues.
Take journalism, for example. I can’t remember the last time I saw a really fresh face that was articulate, inspiring and not self-involved. It’s always the same 20 or so people being dusted off and wheeled out. Now, I find it hard to believe that there is no talent available in the way there has been for decades, which can only mean that our young either aren’t particularly interested in local affairs, are not willing to put themselves out there for perhaps smaller rewards than they envisioned or are simply overwhelmed by the state of things and don’t know what to do about it.
Politics is another area where growth is not only necessary but vital. Here we are talking about bringing back people who, given their histories, most other parliaments wouldn’t touch with a barge pole when what we should be doing is trying to attract fresh faces and new ideas. I honestly don’t get it.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to reinvent the wheel and come up with something that people might actually be willing to vote for than constantly trying to give the already tried and tested more comebacks than Cher?
I don’t know how half the country isn’t on the road to sainthood with this constant talk of forgiveness and suffering. It’s a wonder we have prisons at all with our insistence on not paying any form of price for the consequences of our own actions. I don’t think I’ve ever seen justice used so subjectively by so many at one go.
Our value system seems to be solely based on our likes and dislikes, how we have woken up in the morning and our incredible ability to ignore or conveniently forget plain facts.
We are a country perpetually living in a fabricated past, teetering on the edge of ruin and convinced that this is the best we can do. Instead of finding new solutions to our very real issues, we perpetually repeat the old lies about what it means to be Maltese.
Is it any wonder our young are fed up with us? Is it any wonder they are leaving in their droves? What future can a country constantly living in another age offer them? They can’t afford houses; hell, at this point, they can barely afford food unless it’s corned beef; why would they stay here and bite another bullet for a land so grossly unconcerned with accommodating anyone except the few?
Old ways won’t open new doors.
“I don’t know how half the country isn’t on the road to sainthood with this constant talk of forgiveness and suffering