Juan Vicente Espinola Benitez

Life can fly away in a blink.
Rushing and not living.
Texting and not feeling.
Hanging out with friends but not chatting,
Working like crazy, not earning enough for vacation.
Family? Hanging in there,
And you? Good thanks!

Stop!
Too busy to breath?
Or no time for a break?
People rushing daily, forgetting even to have a meal.
People spinning on a wheel of life
Not checking a clock.
Thinking about the future,
Working but not resting,
Dreaming but not reaching.
Walking by neighbors who have stopped in time
like posters on the wall.
Eventually asking, "What´s going wrong?"

Poetry

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Juan Vicente examines the toll our busy schedules can take on our lives and relationships.

What's Going Wrong?

Olivia Bailey

Media: today’s version of a synthetic reality that people are readily willing to accept as truth. 

Face-to-face conversations are few and far between, and people’s chosen forms of communication often allow for them to pick out any mistakes — letting them hide their flaws before anyone has a chance to see inside. There’s only one problem with this. We’re engulfing ourselves in these fake feelings, almost to the point that we forget we belong to a real, tangible world. We turn into our labels and give in to made-up happinesses — to the point where we can look in a mirror and not recognize ourselves as proper human beings. Technology, this wonderful tool we’ve invented to better our day-to-day lives, has managed to replace reality. And most of us don’t even realize it.

The first time I truly realized how much technology twists our self-image was during a trip to Texas I took last year. There was something about the cool, clean December air and the excessive amounts of camouflage that brought a kind of revelation upon me. There, with the screen of technology no longer distorting my vision, I was able to retreat into myself and let go of the things that made up my technological self — my labels, my ideas of self worth — and I was able to discover a few simple truths about being human, as well as how unseemingly simple it is to find happiness.

I shot my first deer the first day we were there. I dressed it that evening. It was somewhere in between the fluorescent lights and the latex gloves that I recognized how imperfect the human body is — and how perfect the media shows it as being. Dressing a deer involves cutting through the skin and stomach muscles to remove the organs so the meat doesn’t become contaminated and inedible. Somewhere in the process, after I cut through the stomach skin, the organs spilled out of the deer, and though they hadn’t changed in size at all, they made the animal look so much bigger than it had in life. Just being able to see what actually went on underneath the skin of this creature was enough to open my eyes to how perfectly normal and fantastically scientific the human body is.

But I had never thought about it like that before, because I’m surrounded by pictures of people who are airbrushed and covered in makeup and holding themselves just so. I’m used to everyone looking so perfect, simply because everywhere I look, I see people who have been “corrected.” So why wouldn’t I think there was something wrong with having organs that actually moved around? Why wouldn’t I look at myself and be confused as to why I looked like I did? Even though I generally knew how anatomy worked, I never really applied it.  While dressing the deer, all of a sudden, I had real-life evidence that what I saw on my screens was not right. I finally had a visual of what organs do inside of you. I finally had proof — at least in this one category — that all these representations of humans that I see everywhere are altered to look thin and flawless. That was when I realized that the perfection we see everywhere had been unachievable all this time. I went from thinking there was something wrong with my shape and size — those thoughts courtesy of the media — to recognizing that I have intestines below my rib cage, and they’re there to keep me alive, so maybe I should grow to love their existence, not will them away.

Constant immersion in media doesn’t only distort our view of our physical selves — it also convinces us to trim ourselves down to fit into neat little boxes called labels. Recently, I have become something of a dictionary entry. I have words that define me, and I define myself by them. But when we arrived in Texas, I realized that labels are worthless. After we landed, I spent 45 minutes in a car with one of my dad’s friends, Mark, who we would be hunting with that week. I’d met Mark once before, but he didn’t know a whole lot about me, and I didn’t know a whole lot about him, either. He didn’t know any of the labels that had slowly begun to accumulate on me, like burrs on the cuffs of my pants. Instead of presenting myself with, “Hullo, my name is Olivia and I am an agnostic, questioningly homosexual 14-year-old fangirl who really likes books and BBC,” the introduction was more like: “Hi, my name’s Olivia and I am a human being just like you.” And that was it. As my cell signal nearly disappeared, I was having the time of my life in a car with a man I barely knew.

I laughed more in that car ride than I do at all some days, and I couldn’t tell you anything about how Mark would define himself. We’re so used to having labels and a list of words at our disposal when we’re entering a description on social media or emailing someone for the first time. But those words began to become the basis of who I am. They slowly started to take over my sense of humanity, and I became them, instead of them becoming a part of me. During that car ride, I discovered that if we let our labels fade into the background and become a part of who we are instead of the definition of who we are, we are all just human beings. And if we’re all just human beings, it doesn’t matter if one of us is a teenage girl who likes to write and acts 20 years older than she is, and the other is a 70-year-old man who is a darn good cook and acts 50 years younger than he is, because both of us are humans, and we both speak the same language, and that is enough. It’s such a magical thing, not having to find people who have labels in common with you and instead being able to say, “you are a human, and I am a human, and therefore we have more than enough in common to be able to talk to each other comfortably.”

On the second day of the trip, I sat in a big metal contraption called a high rack, which is a platform hunters put in the back of a truck and ride around in to get a better view of their prey. Sitting in the high rack, I was above everything else, and it felt like being on top of the world. It was beautiful. We stopped on top of a hill and I could see everything. It was dead silent. I had no cell signal and it was during this time that I discovered my peace — it was a special kind of happiness. Right then, I realized that happiness is really not something we need to romanticize so much.

Whenever we turn on the TV, open up our social media, or read the news, we see a glorified idea of happiness. According to the media, happiness is this huge end goal that will take pain and hard work to achieve. It’s not something you can just have, it’s something you have to shed blood, sweat, and tears for. I had always believed what I saw on TV and on social media. I thought that happiness was something that I was going to have to work for. But on that high rack, watching the silence of nature sprawled out beneath me, I realized that it’s not the unachievable thing we think it is. It’s not something only those people we see in pictures have. Happiness is just an emotion, and it comes and goes just as much as anything else. Happiness doesn’t need to be the end goal. Happiness is within the journey, within the everyday grind.

That moment, sitting in the high rack, I realized that I shouldn’t go through every day working towards happiness like we see so many people doing in the media. I should live every day finding little things to be happy about, and I should allow myself to do things that make me happy as I go, instead of working hard in the present for a happy future. Because if all I do is work, then I probably won’t ever get that happy future, because I will be too busy working to notice it.

I had a lot of firsts during that trip to Texas. First deer, first time seeing a cactus, first pair of bloody latex gloves. It was also the first time I realized that there is no point in our filling our lives with so much technology. I realized that we need to look at the world with a realistic eye, not a digitalized one. I found that we need to stop defining ourselves like we’re words in a dictionary and start defining ourselves as human beings. I found out that happiness is an emotion, and it’s not something you can find while engrossed in a screen. So, put your phone in your pocket, unpack yourself from your carefully labeled boxes, and go find your own happiness.

In a KidSpirit Big Question response, teen writer Olivia Bailey explores how media and technology impact how we see our bodies, our selves, and what it means to be happy.

How Has Technology Altered the Way We View Ourselves?

Grace Luckett

Consumerism today is an endless cycle of purchasing and repurchasing goods dependent upon current styles or fashions. Whenever I go to a chain retail store to buy clothes, I find myself overwhelmed by just how many styles and options there are. 

I always leave with more items then I intended to buy, partially because everything is less expensive than I expected it to be. Prices seem to be dropping at a precipitous pace, even within my relatively short lifetime, and people are buying more clothing than ever. The average American buys at least one clothing item a month. While that may not sound like a lot, each piece of clothing goes through a long and complicated process to reach that person’s home, a process that even 50 years ago would be impossible. 

For example, take a simple printed cotton T-shirt. The cotton fiber from the shirt was most likely made in the United States, but because the U.S. has higher wages and less institutionalized industry, the fiber was probably shipped internationally to a lower-wage country to be spun and woven. The finished shirts are then sent back to Europe or the U.S. to be printed and sold. This process is cheaper, faster, and more productive than any other previous system, and has made access to consumable goods (like a T-shirt) easy for most residents of developed nations. The historical economic shifts that have allowed mass global industry to blossom are a precursor to understanding how consumer culture is able to exist, and an examination of the current state of consumption reveals the nuanced and potentially unsustainable nature of our current world. 

The roots of mass production and modern capitalism began in Western Europe. In the 16th century, mercantilism was thriving. Nation states and governments had a strong grip on their countries’ economies, awarding and revoking monopolies and unilaterally mediating trade agreements with other regional entities. Mercantile capitalism was the most limited form of capitalism because governments controlled the growth of industry and oftentimes were quite isolationist in their international trade policies. Though trade occurred between nations, it was limited and often regulated by the government. 

Despite this, the beginnings of institutionalized cross-national trade were starting to appear at the insistence of joint stock companies, the most notable of which was the East India Trading Company. This British company was a coalition of wealthy merchants who made their money by exporting raw goods from East Asia, most importantly India, back to Western Europe. At the company's height in the early to mid 1600s, it controlled half of the world’s trade. Despite its success, the company still had to gain government approval, and was only allowed to venture east because Queen Elizabeth I granted it a charter. 

Domestic trade was equally regulated. The predominant form of infrastructure was the cottage system, in which rural workers produced goods in their own homes, which were then purchased by urban merchants and resold at a higher price. Governments awarded monopolies to certain merchants, giving them access to more cottage laborers and effectively stifling competition. 

The repressive nature of mercantile capitalism meant that it could not persist in the growing world of trade, and the first country to abandon it and adopt a more progressive economic model was England. In the early 19th century, England was ripe for economic change. It was the wealthiest nation in all of Europe, largely due to its Indian colonies. The British had access to raw goods, specifically coal, from the colonies, which allowed them to advance into steam powered technology. They were also embroiled in a variety of civil and international wars, which meant the government had less time to regulate its peoples. The most important factor that pushed England into the industrial revolution was new technologies and the advent of commercial industry. Soon after, the cottage system was set aside in favor of centralized factories that employed the population at a higher rate and produced  previously unheard of amounts of goods. This transformation pushed England into the age of Industrial Capitalism, which historian Joyce Applebee defines as “an economic system that relies on investment in machines and technology that are used to increase production of marketable goods.” 

The United States would soon follow England into the industrial model of capitalism with the Market Revolution in the early 1800s, which entailed a shift from the production of goods for individuals to the production of goods for sale. A major piece of technology that contributed to this shift was Eli Whitney's cotton gin, which was invented in 1794. The success of the gin led Southern farmers to abandon the production of almost every other kind of good in order to focus their efforts on cotton. Soon, other nations with the capacity to adopt the factory model followed Britain and the United States, leaving behind less productive systems. Ultimately, the greatest impact of the international shift to industrial capitalism was a surplus in consumable goods.

The current state of mass production is the dream of any 19th century industrial capitalist. Multinational corporations dominate global trade, and is relatively unregulated by governing bodies. The increased safety and dramatic drop in cost of transportation means raw goods can be produced in one place and whisked across several continents to be processed at the cheapest possible price. Many governments subsidize specific industries, allowing for exponential growth. All of these things are symptoms of economic globalization, which the UN defines as “the increasing interdependence of world economies as a result of the growing scale of cross-border trade of commodities and services, flow of international capital, and wide and rapid spread of technologies.” 

However, this phenomenon is not universal; trade globalization impacts developing nations very differently than it does massive superpowers. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs found three main issues with globalization in developing nations, the first of which is an increased wealth disparity. The difference of income per capita between the richest and poorest countries has enlarged from 30 times in 1960 to 70 times in 2000. The second is that due to the massive amount of floating international capital, bubble economies are created in pockets of certain nations, as well as disorderly fluctuation of currency exchange rates globally. Bubble economies are unstable, which can lead to financial crises. Examples of this include Mexico and East Asia in the 1990s, when floating international capital unsettled nations’ standing economic policies. The third reason is that globalization, specifically through multinational corporations, creates outsiders to trade. The international economic order always privileges larger industrial nations, but globalization creates impermeable relationships between certain countries at the exclusion of others. By that same token, the rush to enter into trade agreements in order to get a piece of the metaphorical cake causes developing countries to agree to less than fair situations at the danger of becoming outsiders. Ultimately, globalism does spread economic opportunity, but it is important to acknowledge the circumstances that may leave certain nations behind. 

The globalization of trade and mass production have sponsored the massive growth of consumer culture in the U.S. This is evidenced by the shifting definition of the word “consumerism.” Before 1970, “consumerism” meant the interest of the consumer, but quickly afterwards it transformed into meaning extremely high levels of consumption. This shift shows the growth of what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman defines as “consumerist culture.” He describes this phenomena as a “culture that values transience and mobility, rather than duration and stability, and the newness of things and reinvention of oneself over endurance.” This is a departure from productivist culture, which valued individual creation and delayed gratification. Consumerist culture is about living in the now, staying up to date on trends because goods are cheap enough to purchase and repurchase depending on the current fad. This culture is made possible because of the international free market, and only exists in privileged countries, such as the United States, where the per capita income is extremely high. 

On an even larger scale, mass production and capitalism have driven the earth towards climate change and eventual ruin. CO2 emissions are at their highest rates ever largely due to factory production, and smog in China from smokestacks has taken a toll on the health of the Chinese population. While it is easy to paint mass production and consumerism as purely destructive, there are many overall good effects. The exportation of labor has had an arguably positive impact on the global community. The number of people living under the UN poverty line has dropped exponentially, and the service job market in the United States, which provides more opportunities for health care and adequate compensation, has also grown. 

While the morality of mass consumption is questionable, the truth is that the progress is inevitable. As humanity looks to the future, it's almost impossible to imagine that we will return to material asceticism. Nevertheless, holding industry accountable for actively ruining the environment and mistreating workers does not contradict humanity’s drive to expand. If anything, it brings us closer to a truly progressive future. On a more personal level, making conscious choices about when and what you purchase can prevent you from spiraling into a mindset of materialism and wastefulness. While the consumerist culture we live in today is made possible by awe-inspiring global connectivity, it still has social and environmental impacts that must be examined. 

"The Market Revolution: 1793-1860." SparkNotes. http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/precivilwar/section6.rhtml

Bythell, Duncan. "Cottage Industry and the Factory System." History Today, April: 17-23 (1983).  http://www.historytoday.com/duncan-bythell/cottage-industry-and-factory-system

Cole, Nicki Lisa. "Definition of Consumerist Culture." ThoughtCo. April 11, 2017. https://www.thoughtco.com/consumerist-culture-3026120

Shangquan, Gao. "Economic Globalization: Trends, Risks and Risk Prevention." United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 2000. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/cdp/cdp_background_papers/bp2000_1.pdf

Time, Forest. "What Is the Difference Between a Cottage and a Commerical Industry?" Houston Chronicle. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-cottage-commercial-industry-76886.html

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Grace Luckett explores the origins and impacts of global trade, industrialization, consumerism, and modern "throwaway culture." 

Living in the Now: Consumerism and Its History

Abraham Weitzman

In my family, the road trip has always been presented as a coming-of-age experience. 

My mom spoke fondly of her cross-country trip to the Grand Canyon when she was 14 — the crappy motels, driving for hours on end, the terrible food, the ultimate goal of seeing America. 

We left for our own family road trip on a Tuesday afternoon in August. The first leg was going to be 18 hours from our home in New York City to Omaha, with bathroom breaks every three hours and that was it. It all seems like a blur, now that I think about it. 

I remember I couldn't sleep that first night in the car. Everyone else but Dad and me was knocked out. My brother Izzy was lying all over grandfather "Papa Dan" in the back; my assistant and friend Mahmood leaning against me, dead to the world; the radio playing quietly so no one woke up. “The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves.” Like a typical Jersey boy, my dad loves Springsteen, and 'Thunder Road' is his favorite song of all time. 

We drove through the night, marking all of our stops for gas in a travel journal, taking down mileage and the amount spent, something to look back on. I do still look back on it. Even though it has only been two years, that road trip feels almost like a different life. It was so unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I have been camping before, and we have gone for long drives, but something about this trip was special. It was seeing America, it was following in my mother's footsteps, it was a rite of passage.

I never thought I would be so happy to be in Nebraska. My dad quipped that we should have just kept driving and seen how far we could have gotten. This was met by dull groans and an angry look from Mom. After such a long time spent in the car, the Holiday Inn felt like the Waldorf Astoria. There were almost animal-like sounds from everyone getting out of the car.

“My knees are too old for this,” Papa Dan said. He kept his legs at an angle for a while because he couldn’t get them quite straight. While my parents and grandfather unpacked the car, Mahmood took me and Izzy up to our room. I went in my stander, which keeps me upright, and Izzy jumped on the bed for about 20 minutes straight. 

The next day's drive from Omaha to Colorado was fairly uneventful and seemed short when compared to our 18 hour jaunt the day before. What was most noticeable was the changing scenery. It was amazing going from the rural farmland to the mountains and forests of Colorado. The whole state smelled like grass right after it rains. That fresh crisp scent triggered a hundred different memories for me. 

Allenspark, Colorado, was our first real stop on the trip. We pulled up to the most picturesque cottage you have ever seen. It sits deep in the forest without another house in sight. Going into the cottage, I could see why Dad picked it. He is always one for being in nature, isolated from other people. The house was all wood with a small fireplace in the front room. Everything was decorated in a cutesy way — a picture of a fish on the wall, an animal throw on the floor. The two days cramped in the car were quickly forgotten as we stretched out by the creek in the backyard. 

Our first day of hiking came after a good night of relaxation and a lot of sleeping. Later we would find out that it was good we were so rested. Rocky Mountain National Park is a really beautiful place in the summer. It's not too crowded, and there are so many trails that you never feel like you’re hiking with a hundred other people. I hike in an ATV. My dad built it custom just for me. It is an amazing four-wheeled chair made out of unistrut, a lightweight metal. It also has four big tires so it can get over rocks, bad trails, and small logs. Dad even built in suspension so it has some bounce to make it more comfortable. 

Our first hike was one my mom picked out. It was a one-mile trail to a nice waterfall, where we would have lunch and then hike back. When we got to the park, the ranger told us there was a second parking lot farther up the trail, so we didn't have to get out so far away. For my mom and dad that was a challenge. They didn't want a head start; they wanted us to hike the mile like everyone else. So we got out, Mahmood strapped me into the ATV, and off we went.

The park was absolutely stunning. There were amazing trees unlike any I've seen in New York; some connected to each other, and others were taller than anything I've experienced. But here was the problem with the hike. I am good at math; Mahmood is good at math; and my mom is an engineer. We know roughly when we have gone a mile, and after about an hour and a half Mahmood started to question Mom, "Are you sure we are going the right way?" 

"Absolutely!" Mom assured him. "It's a hiking mile, so it takes longer."

"Ok, no problem," Mahmood responded, a favorite phrase of his. My family often jokes he would never say it was a problem even if it was. So he kept pushing the ATV.

It had been about two and a half hours when we finally saw a sign that said the waterfalls were up ahead.

"See? We are almost there," my mom said, feeling vindicated.

"Yeah, just one mile away," Mahmood said in a snarky tone, drawing a big laugh from my brother and dad.

When we finally did arrive at the waterfalls, they were beautiful. The water was rushing. Just the sound of it was mesmerizing, and at that moment it felt like the polar opposite of being in New York City. We were standing there in the middle of nature and seeing everything that surrounded us. We could just stay still in that serene place and tune out the rest of the world. The only word to use for that feeling, especially for someone who has grown up in one of the busiest places in the world, is magical.

In New York City there are lots of amazing things, available whenever you want them. On this trip I found places we could not reach in an hour, or two. The days spent traveling were more than a physical necessity. They prepared us to slow down and really see the mountains, feel the coolness of swimming in the waterfall pool, and hear the splashing water over the silence. Time spent traveling was time well spent. 

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Abraham Weitzman shares how a family road trip taught him the value of slowing down to enjoy the beauty of life and the world around us.

Journey from the Center of the Earth

Khawaja Mustafa Shah

Pakistani culture is one that has proven to be especially resistant to change and technology. While this attitude is still prevalent, our society has greatly evolved to become one of the top emerging markets in the world. 

The youth of Pakistan, both rural and urban, are coming to accept the fact that in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive world, we have to make use of any and all tools at our disposal. As a member of Pakistan’s growing youth population, I see the need to modernize the country by introducing new technologies; however, there are still some new developments that do not sit well with me due to my personal beliefs and disposition.

In my opinion, the modern world is too absorbed by consumerism to even notice the irreversible damage being done to our society. The elite waste tons of food every year, while over 795 million people are undernourished. We spend money on needless items like gold foil, when we could be helping one of the 22,000 children that die every day from poverty. The overuse of CFC’s (chlorofluorocarbons) have led to a gap in the ozone layer. Increased greenhouse gas emissions have led to climate change and, as a result, many species are dying out. 

On the other hand, new technology also has many positive impacts. Oscar-winning director Sharmin Obaid Chinoy’s documentary Saving Face highlights a useful implementation of one modern practice. Plastic surgery can help the victims of body disfigurations live a normal life. If plastic surgery and the use of prosthetics were made mainstream in Pakistan, it would be a great help to the populace. 

A few months ago, I was returning from school, when I saw a homeless man on crutches asking for food at a traffic light. I saw that he was missing a leg and all he had in its place was a jagged stump. He was holding a sign (written in Urdu) that read, “My leg was torn off by shrapnel during a bombing. My family has disowned me due to my appearance. I am unable to get a job. Please help.” Sadly, cases like these are not uncommon amongst the less privileged in Pakistan. Recently, however, Pakistanis are showing that they are now more accepting of technology that may help them. I was doing an internship at the Indus Hospital, which is a hospital that provides free healthcare to the needy, and they showed us the prosthetics department. The hospital makes multiple prosthetics every day and administers them free of charge. In the waiting area, I saw the same homeless man, who now had a prosthetic leg. This showed me that the advent of technology does not just benefit the wealthy, but also the poor.

Another advancement that many Pakistanis think crosses a boundary is the use of contraceptives. While this is rejected by much of the rural populace, I firmly believe that contraceptives are essential for a stable society. Due to the taboo surrounding birth control, a married couple not ready for children might end up with a very large number of offspring that they may not be able to provide for. Birth control measures can also decrease the rate of population growth, which would be beneficial to rising levels of poverty.

Other developments in the field of medicine upset the sentiments of many Pakistanis. The use of medical marijuana to treat debilitating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and cancer is on the rise in many parts of the world. However, it is not a common course of treatment in Pakistan, as marijuana is a mind-altering substance that some scholars of religion say is forbidden, while others firmly believe that, under the right circumstances, anything potentially life-saving is permitted. Similarly, I believe that any substance that can reduce the symptoms of these diseases should not be illegal. A family friend of mine has MS and the doctors tried all conventional medical treatments to no effect. However, when she was taken to the United States for help, she was immediately prescribed marijuana edibles. At the time of this writing, she is responding positively to the treatment and has been able to live a relatively normal life. In my opinion, the doctors in Pakistan should have recommended this, as it has alleviated her symptoms and helped her to cope with the pain. I think it is time for institutions to realize that social taboos are inconsequential when a human life hangs in the balance.  

All of the above uses of technology are in the medical sphere, but in my personal experience, the area in which technology plays the most transformative role is in the way small scale businesses intersect with everyday life. I realized this when I was at an antiques market in Karachi. A few years ago, this market was dying. Not because there was no interest in the merchants’ products, but because no one had the right tools to market them. However, when I recently went to the market and asked for some bronze figures, the shop owner simply whipped out his cell phone and made a few calls. While the figurines were not immediately available, he said he would WhatsApp me pictures of all the pieces he would be able to get. Upon inquiry, he told me that he had a group on WhatsApp where he would regularly post unique finds for sale that were available for home delivery. He told me that before installing the app, his family business was failing and he could barely put food on the table. Now, by finding customers through online communication, he has increased the size of his shop fivefold. 

Another area where technology helps Pakistanis is providing access to valuable resources in hard to reach areas. One of the most poverty stricken areas in Pakistan is the Tharparkar desert. Due to a scarcity of water, its inhabitants are unable to live ordinary lives and are forced to ration their water. However, that is about to change. I attended a fundraiser, organized by OAKS, a charity organization, that raised a few million rupees to finance the digging of 10 wells in the region. Without technology, this would take significantly more time and money. But due to excavators and other construction equipment, this job is much easier to do and can bring water to the people of Tharparkar much faster.    

If anything, my society has taught me to be grateful for the world I am living in and to take nothing for granted. I was always exposed to technology, ever since I was born, so I used to assume it was commonplace and everyone had access to it.  One day, a member of our household staff asked me to go the electronics store to help him to pick out a new phone. When I offered to pay for it, he refused, saying that he just needed my help in finding a good phone. He was more worried about the front camera quality than anything else. When we got home, he asked for temporary access to the WiFi network. After an hour, he came to my room and began thanking me repeatedly. I asked him, “What happened?” His reply broke my heart. He said, “I just spoke to my wife and son face-to-face for the first time in six months. I wanted to thank you for giving me access to the internet.” This really put things into perspective for me. While I used the internet for idle purposes, like watching videos or reading the news, he needed it to help him talk to his family.

This helped me realize that, despite the doubts that I have about the ethics of technology, it really can improve the lives of millions. From simple things, like allowing a man to connect with his family, to reconstructing a person’s face, technology is a gift to mankind. Instead of constantly rejecting it, Pakistan should embrace it with open arms. 

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Mustafa Shah shares how his country, Pakistan, can benefit from new technology in the fields of medicine, communication, and development.

Techno-Pakistan

Jocelyn Ruffner

Stop.
Collect your thoughts.
Go. Go, go, go.

Study until you fall asleep
hoping you’ll pick something up
through lying on top of your science book.
Retake, and retake, and retake,
Because all of your grades have to be A’s.
A-? You’re kidding.

You can’t let your sister get too far ahead,
And you can’t let anyone else surpass you.
Stay on top of work, and keep learning.

Socialize and laugh,
With the people who you want to,
And the people you don’t.

What other people think is important
You have to be pretty, and nice, and smart
But not too smart, or too pretty, or too nice

Talk and fit people into your schedule,
Even when you don’t have the time
Especially when you don’t have time.

If you’re not pretty enough,
Watch tutorials, and practice using makeup
To cover the pimples, and tiredness.

But don’t wear too much,
because that’s trying too hard.
Because your effort is something you need to cover, too.
Because people will judge you.
And then you will judge yourself.
So try, and cover your scars.

Don’t let yourself fall behind.
Keep up. Keep up, keep up, keep up.

The speed of now won’t wait for you. 

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Jocelyn Ruffner reflects on the pressure students face to perform, look, and act perfectly. 

Don't Stop

Fizza Raza

“I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin. ”

This is one of my favorite quotes from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, a remarkable writer whose take on the future of society set off a wave of dystopian thinkers in the 1900s. The quote perfectly captures an underlying theme in the novel: the importance of human emotion against rationale. 

Set in London and published in 1932, the book explores a dystopian society following a eugenic breeding system, in which different mechanisms are employed to ensure a society of desirable hereditary characteristics, such as intelligence and beauty. Huxley drew inspiration from Henry Ford’s industrial innovation of the assembly line at the time, which has haunting relevance 86 years down the road, as technology and its seeming benefits cast a looming shadow on people’s lives. The society depicted in his novel refers to Ford in place of God through phrases such as “Oh My Ford!” instead of “Oh My God!” Huxley uses Ford’s success to showcase his main argument: that the increasing importance of technology and its creators in the lives of people can only have negative effects. 

The “Brave New World” which Huxley explores is one where the “World State” consists of a brutal, emotionless society calibrated to breed a flawlessly intelligent population. The State enforces a system of totalitarianism, controlling everyone’s lives through test tube babies and hypnotism. This results in a caste system with intelligent humans at the top of the hierarchy, suited to the most powerful positions, and subordinate beings at the bottom, who are genetically programmed to carry out menial, low-value tasks.

As a novel, Brave New World explores an interesting and impeccably structured storyline with well-developed characters and an intense, impactful climax. Three distinct characters, Marx, Helmholtz, and John, share the same disillusionment with their society. Huxley makes use of all of them to paint a picture of a possible future, one in which mankind willingly gives up freedom in exchange for an illusion of happiness and a sense of fulfillment from performing their role in society. The story centers around the life of Marx, a citizen of the State. Huxley effectively builds the plot through gradually revealing Marx’s dissatisfaction and then introducing Helmholtz as someone who shares his unease. 

The characters are faced with the same questions, but choose to deal with them differently. Huxley uses their different ways of dealing with their unsettlement to both develop the story and make it relatable to a wider audience. While I could relate to Marx’s response to his predicament only partially, I understood Helmholtz’s reaction better, demonstrating that the novel is truly written to appeal to all kinds of audiences. I enjoyed the book for the most part, but found it perhaps a bit too negative at times, with very few high points in the storyline. It also suffers slightly when a number of new characters are introduced in the latter half of the novel with inadequate time allotted to their development, making the story a little difficult to follow. 

The themes and ideas explored in Brave New World are haunting because of their extreme relevance to the times we live in today. As Huxley paints a world in which technology seeps into people’s lifestyles in each and every aspect, he forces his readers to ponder the cost of this technology, and the inherent clash it creates between human emotion and logical rationale — in other words, whether the importance of human emotions, even if unfounded, trumps facts and evidence — a debate just as relevant now as it was then. Within his novel, Huxley expresses his hopelessness at the future of mankind, and seemingly gets carried away in presenting a robotic, senseless society. Because Huxley’s novel came at a time when technology had quickly replaced workers throughout the world, the very idea of something that could herald so much creation pushed him to reject the belief that technological advancements and humanity’s progress could exist side by side. 

Therefore, with references such as “hatcheries” to produce children and “soma,” a drug taken to maintain happiness, Huxley's vision of the future is extreme, one which is perhaps not as likely as the one he depicts to his readers. The idea that “all conditioning aims [to make] people like their unescapable social destiny” is perhaps more relevant to our future. Huxley uses the “World State” to illustrate an idea of the perfect life. However, on deeper inspection, he reveals the nature of citizens’ happiness: it is artificially generated in a laboratory to continually instill a sense of satisfaction, thus “making people like their unescapable social destiny.” Regardless, the world Huxley creates and its extreme nature renders his novel at slight odds with the reality of today. After finishing his novel, I was left feeling rather hopeless. Perhaps Huxley could have better expressed his message had he not been so extreme and absolute in the emotionless society he portrays. 

Nevertheless, the idea of society progressing towards an almost robotic, desensitized method of operating through means of eugenics is something that was and still is extremely relevant. Huxley forces his readers to ponder the path the world was taking at that time, and is continuing upon today. The emotive use of language and the strategic way he employs different writing styles to present his story further illuminate his opinion. Although his writing becomes hard to follow at times, I believe he purposefully uses impactful language and extremely complex sentences and phrases to elicit a reaction from his readers. The strong ideas and messages Huxley puts forth in his novel are perhaps best understood by readers above 13 years of age, although I would highly recommend those younger than 13 who are trying to make sense of the fast-moving world around them to give it a read.

Huxley’s novel was not only an extremely interesting read, but highly helpful in trying to understand and make sense of 1930s society, and also in trying to interpret the times we live in today. I would give the book 4 out of 5 stars in terms of both the message Huxley presents and the way in which he presents it. As one of the first novels to explore the future of modern-day society, Brave New World truly is a difficult text to forget, and an even harder one to ignore. The questions it poses are ones that continue to plague us today, and while they depict a haunting image of the future, perhaps their answer need not be as bleak.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Fizza Raza shares her take on the dystopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Brave New World: Is It Really?

Hannah Grove

Every time before when he said he would visit,

Lapping at the front stoop, unsure if he should knock.

All that courage to visit us, but he never did.

Thick cotton days and honeysuckle nights lulled us into the false security of late summer,

Thinking his plodding gate wouldn’t march up our street

And whisk open the saffron door that Mama loved so much,

Kiss the legs of the table Daddy cut from the big spruce,

Or sink his teeth into the wainscoting that I helped paint.

I think we wanted that Texas flag to flap a little ardor into our lives,

To brighten the horizon of monochromatic office buildings and miles and miles of pavement.

The screens ran ruddy with storm warnings, 

Our lives and hearts beating faster than before.

He didn’t have it in him, we thought . . .

Until we saw Daddy sleeping in his favorite leather chair that he tried to save,

placed on the stained coffee table that just kept sinking.

He liked the chair better than the table, he said.

With our door wide open, our unwelcome guest lamented about how abhorrent our home was.

Until he decided that pulling a three-foot swell was enough,

And that he had bigger projects to work on.

We waited for the camera flash to leave our eyes,

Before we finally got to see what our uninvited visitor did.

He’s long gone now, gone with pensive bluebells and quivering leaves,

But he stamped the letter before he sent it.

And now there’s a big brown scar across the front yard

From where he sat, with the keenness of an alley cat, waiting;

Waiting to come and leave our little home a shell of what it was,

Mama cried when she saw what our old friend did.

He didn’t take anything, just rearranged,

But our friend didn’t realize that he took from us what contractors can’t repair.

Crude pine cone turkeys and bunny napkin holders,

But we stuff table linens in silence, mourning the Christmas’s past,

And how the charred corner on the holiday cloth

came from Daddy when he laughed so hard the candle tipped over.

And we watch as Mama puts a dulling shard of crystal beside it,

The only thing she has left of her engagement present.

But now she does, diligently and with poise,

Because she knows that others lost more than just their homes.

That our lives are put in boxes and not boxed away.

Through furrowed brows and trembling hands,

But maybe this time we could have opened the door for him,

Be sure to soil that rug, Erin never liked it anyway.

I think of all the courage it took for him to visit,

And all the courage it’s taking for us to forgive.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Hannah Grove reflects on the sudden upheaval, change, and destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey and other increasingly common natural disasters.

Harvey

Eliza Moore

The world must not peel your fingers away piece by piece 

The music murmurs to you in the lamplight 

You grow a whole orchard of oranges, of citrus, 

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Eliza Moore contemplates the beauty and joy of living in the present moment. 

Vanita Sharma

Imagine this: As you turn down the train aisle to find a seat on your commute home, you make eye contact with some of the strangers looking up at you. You get some smiles, you see some frowns, but you notice. You notice the unfamiliar faces and a new environment.

That may be hard to imagine. In reality, when you walk down the aisle of a train or bus, unfamiliar eyes are staring down at their screens. One of them may be FaceTiming a loved one from across the country; another may be switching between apps to avoid making conversation. Perhaps this trick can prevent people from feeling vulnerable, but it could also restrain them from making conversation that could develop into a valuable friendship. Technology is a tool our society has to learn how to use responsibly, without letting it detract from our interpersonal relationships with others. 

On one hand, technology has enabled me to have some of my most interesting interactions with people. A few years ago, I became pen pals over Skype with a young girl from India to help her learn English and help my own Hindi. Through KidSpirit, I have been able to communicate with teenagers all over the world, allowing me to understand other people’s perspectives on themes that resonate globally. This experience creates bonds between individuals of our generation from diverse backgrounds and is crucial for moving society forward. Technology has helped form stronger communities of people from the same cultural background, as participants rally behind their personal rights collectively through social media. In my own town, the “Indian Caucus of Secaucus” has a Facebook page, through which the town’s Indians plan celebratory events for Holi and Diwali and meet each other at these festivities. The ties amongst different communities have grown limitlessly stronger with the help of our devices. 

Although modern technology has provided endless connections globally, it also has its downsides. Individuals vulnerable to the growing problem of phone addiction can claim that we still pursue lives beyond our ever-expanding iPhones, but my generation often evaluates whether these experiences are “worthy” of sharing. Social media portrays the moments of our lives that are the most perfect, and some people have grown to constantly search for these rare moments to capture. We try so hard to find aesthetic spontaneity that we take away from the genuine pleasure in any experience. 

This mindset isolates us from enjoying real experiences and forming genuine relationships. When we “see” other people with tons of friends, on vacation, and with their most flattering clothes on, we feel their lives are better than our own. Resultantly, we strive to come off in the same way, and feel good about ourselves after getting public approval through our number of likes. We lose touch with finding what is valuable to us. Modern technology consumes our days, occupying any free time available, and thereby preventing us from truly discovering what we value in life. 

Too much exposure to this lifestyle paradoxically induces social isolation. This phenomenon is called “virtual distance,” and it prevents us from seeking deeper bonds with others. Virtual distance, as Dr. Karen Sobel-Lojeski puts it, is “a sense of psychological and emotional detachment that begins to grow little by little unconsciously when most encounters and experiences are mediated by screens on smart devices.” Her studies show that high amounts of virtual distance decrease trust and cooperative and helping behaviors by 80%—making us lose the ability to develop social skills and appreciate each other by ourselves. While the capability to communicate so effortlessly through the tap of a finger is commendable, electronically dependent relationships are unable to convey the same emotion and empathy as physical ones. Because of this, relationships are disrupted, and things that used to be treasured gestures of appreciation are downgraded to dangerous one-line “i love u” text messages. The beautiful mystery associated with romance is not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. Within five minutes of scrolling on social media, you can uncover a love interest’s passions and personal life, taking away from the opportunity of getting to know someone slowly over multiple dates.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a problem we can solve by simply putting our phones away during dinner. Studies have shown that our attention span decreases in proportion to the amount of time spent browsing the internet. Our minds, exposed to tons of news and gossip and notifications every day, are subconsciously preoccupied regardless of whether we are on our devices at a particular moment. There is no doubt that quality time at family dinners, high school cafeterias, and social gatherings is negatively influenced by phone addictions. Today, everyone’s priority at an event such as a school dance is to document their “fun” on social media through Snapchat stories and Instagram posts instead of sincerely spending time with others. 

In the absence of devices, families and friends would learn to converse and interact comfortably, creating stronger long-term bonds. People would listen to and attempt to understand the opinions of those from different backgrounds, instead of judging everyone based on virtually defined stereotypes. Perhaps in that world, political upheavals like the 2017 election would not result in even more divisions in our nation, but rather force us to solve deep-rooted issues collectively by actively listening to other perspectives. 

After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, social media was flooded with “thoughts and prayers.” Those who posted about the calamity seemed more conscientious and thoughtful to me, but in reality, were the posters simply wishing or were they taking action? While our devices help spread awareness, they take the place of actual discussions. Therefore, the device becomes an escape from hearing what other people have to say, and that by itself is strengthening, not healing, our divisions. Technology is isolating us from our problems, our peers, and ourselves.

While there are many pros and cons to technology’s impact on relationships, we have to find a happy medium that allows us to keep the human element intact in our interactions with people while reaping the benefits of new advances. If we continue to let technology abate the effort we put into staying in touch with our peers and surroundings, it will become increasingly more difficult to redeem the interpersonal skills that we need in order to truly listen to our peers. In the United States, we claim to stand together, “one nation . . . indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” but at this rate, we’re growing farther apart. As the negative consequences of modern technology overwhelm the positives, face-to-face interactions between people with different opinions will become even more limited and cultural ties will become weaker. It’s crucial that we do not lose ourselves while relishing the benefits our modern technological frontier has to offer. 

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Vanita Sharma examines the impact of technology, smartphones, and social media on our interpersonal relationships with family, friends, and strangers.

Modern Technology: Bringing Us Together or Pulling Us Apart?

Nargis Kachrumathur

because these days everything is about the dollars.

But do you ever look at the love and care,

Time spent on loving the ones you hold dear,

and post it on Instagram with a caption that makes no sense.

the you that is selfish and ready to ignore,

on which you're reading this teenager's poem.

You can choose to go be the person who cares,

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Nargis Mathur contemplates the everyday joys we often overlook in a world dominated by social media, smartphones, and materialism.

The Little Things in Life

Ayla Schultz

I settle down for dinner with my family. Pots of steaming and fragrant dahl, rotis, chicken, and pale brown rice sit at the center of the table.

Nani is sitting across from me, talking to my brother about something that my uncle recently sent on WhatsApp. The smell of zeera, elaichi, and rai seeds hit my nose. Mouths water, plates are overfilled, everyone smiles as the warm food hits their mouths. 

Food has always been central to the culture of my family. Some of my earliest memories are of eating kitchri (slow cooked rice and lentils) and cauliflower after a half day of preschool. Indian food has always felt familiar, the thing that I can come home to after a long day at school. The twist and turn of layered spices and textures feels like home — warm and indescribably comforting. 

Making Indian food the traditional way my Nani does takes hours. She starts by pounding garlic and slowly simmering it with onions and ginger. Then she grinds spices, adding washed lentils, tomatoes, and cloves. The result of numerous hours in the kitchen is a beautiful dish that reveals many undertones of flavor with each bite. 

Many people, including my mom, have adopted a faster cooking technique. She uses modern appliances to aid in the cooking process, which cuts down on the time it takes to make traditional food and allows people to cook even if they work a nine-to-five job, as she does. Instead of taking fifteen minutes to chop up garlic and onions, my mom reaches for a food processor that can do the same job in seconds.

Still, as my Nani says,  "People should not reach for a food processor for everything.” There is a certain connection that people form with the food when they put time and effort into cooking it, and that exertion is reflected in the way that it tastes — it has a flavor that cannot be replicated by any appliance. That is the taste I have grown up with, a taste laced with the hard work and sweat that the person preparing it has put in.  Onions and garlic chopped by hand have a subtly different flavor and texture than their evenly processed counterparts. Spices ground by a mortar and pestle are finer and more fragrant, almost as if the manual act of pressing and splitting the grains imparts flavor. 

Creating an Indian meal has always been a communal experience for me. My family wanders in and out of the kitchen helping my Nani chop and stir whatever she is making for dinner later that day. There will always be something to be said for the bonding aspect of cooking, of taking the time to settle down and put love and care into the food that is being cooked. Food, to me, always tastes better when it has a backstory, whether that be the fact that it was made by a person in my family or created over a long conversation. That thought attached to the dish makes it taste immeasurably better, because we have not only bonded with the dish, but with the person or story behind it. To me, the final product is only as worthy as the journey and conversation it took to get there.  

Food preparation has to evolve with the times. Because we have less time to cook, we turn to technology which provides us with a set of extra hands, and a way to prepare healthy food quickly. Takeout can be ordered at the click of a button, and frozen foods can be microwaved with ease. Appliances save hours of time. Meals that took a day to make can be prepared in a matter of minutes. Technology has made many dishes more accessible than they were, allowing me to make things that require heavy arm power without the resulting sore limb — such as Italian-style meringues. Recipes can be shared and referred to on the internet, opening us to an online maze of possibility. But still, if I have the time, it is always beautiful to revert back to the traditional ways of cooking even if it is for the sole purpose of connecting with the dish I am making, and taking the time to truly enjoy the process of creating food. 

But no matter how much cooking strays from its hyper-traditional ways, I hope that the core of what makes traditional cooking so tasty will not disappear. Technology is an incredibly useful assistant but should not become the chef. We should not lose that magical flavor that comes with working to prepare the meals we set on the table. Using numerous appliances is a very results-oriented way to cook, but there is a lot to be said, both in terms of flavor and gratification, for enjoying the process and not just rushing to the conclusion.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Ayla Schultz shares the importance of her family's slow traditional cooking methods in a world where speed and mechanical tools have become the norm. 

Zeera and Kitchri in the Digital Age

Mac Fabens

Normally, kids don’t get expelled from my school. However, last fall, when I entered eighth grade, things really changed. 

In seventh grade I thought my classmates were still pristine, but over the summer they rapidly grew up, and not in a mature way. We used to be kids that didn’t even know what the word “drugs” meant, but now it seems like half the grade is regularly doing drugs and drinking alcohol, and that isn’t even the worst they’ve done. Of course people get older and things change, but these things changed fast. Picture my grade crossing a road; you’d think that we would walk across, but instead we jumped. 

Last October my grade went on a five-day trip. For the past few years, we had been looking forward to the trip because it was supposed to be a fun experience, and for most of us it was. We got to travel down the Eastern Shore and learn about the wildlife and ecology of Chincoteague Bay. We got to get out of the city,  away from our families and all our responsibilities, and we got to learn something valuable without sitting in a classroom for an hour. Personally, I enjoyed the trip a lot. However, some people in my grade couldn’t enjoy it because of one person’s actions. 

On the trip, a boy touched several girls without permission. It made me (and plenty of other people) pretty uncomfortable to see my classmate do what he was doing. Because of his behavior, he got suspended with a warning that if he were to ever do something worthy of suspension again, he would be expelled. He had to meet with the principal once a week, and every teacher watched him closely. It was sad to see this happen because he was funny, smart, and a friend to most people, but then out of the blue he just started being a creep. 

We all thought he would slow down with the warnings he was given, but instead he sped up, getting expelled a month later for vaping in the bathroom and copying someone else’s lab report. Recently, another student was expelled for vaping, but it was a bit too late, as he had been the one leading the charge towards more serious problems and had already sold drugs to a good number of people in my grade. 

The kids that got expelled had just hit a sort of mental growth spurt, and it happened without any prior signals. One thing that we all experience when getting older is that problems become more serious. When we were younger, a problem could be someone stealing a toy, but now that we’re older, we face problems like people selling drugs in school. 

The switch to kids doing drugs was a big change. A year ago when kids in my grade did drugs, they just did them once every so often, just to “experiment.” Then this year came about and they started taking drugs more often — now some of them are actually hooked.

People are always changing, but sometimes you get so assured that things will stay the same that you completely ignore the transformation process until it hits you right in the face. If you ignore a signal, it seems like change happens suddenly. Maybe there were signs of my grade changing that I completely missed because I was just being happy in my own world.

I think that I wasn’t ready for these changes because of my time spent away at summer camp. Trends on social media come and go so fast that nobody can keep up with them except the people making them. Most summer camps don’t allow technology, so kids disconnect from the world and have no idea what’s going on online. This is good because you spend less time online, and you realize that nothing actually matters outside of real life. However, when you return from the wonderful experience of being away, you realize that in the span of a few days, a photo or a video has become a meme or has taken over society’s attention. Shortly after that, it’s gone and something else has taken its place. This is just an example of how quickly things are happening in the 21st century. Trends come and go, and changes in society and technology are happening faster than you realize. 

We’re advancing at an incredible rate, but we have to make sure that our advancements are actually beneficial. If we move forward so fast that we can’t think about what we’re actually doing first, there will be more consequences. We need to think of all the outcomes to our actions, not just the ones that benefit us.

For me, witnessing people in my grade breaking rules just taught me that I was growing up. I am no longer at the age where I can run around playing innocently, because I know more, and when you learn something, you can’t really forget it. If I had stayed more on top of things, maybe nothing new in my grade would have been an unpleasant surprise. But even though I didn’t pay attention to passing new trends, I still received a surprise that introduced a new era of life to me. It introduced an era of life that stripped away my childhood innocence, even if I’m still personally innocent.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments essay, teen writer Mac Fabens explores a loss of innocence, growing up too fast, and starting to deal with serious problems, like peer pressure and drugs in school. 

The Leap of Now

Ohad Argavan

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Ohad Argavan urges the next generation to not just invent new technology, but use it wisely, intentionally, and compassionately. 

Taking Our Future into Our Hands

What does it mean to be alive at this moment? How is modern technology impacting our world and our experiences? Join KidSpirit contributors as they grapple with change, balance, and authenticity in their lives.

What's Going Wrong?

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