I started my new column—about seeing the world through the eyes of a Xennial—last issue. If you aren’t already aware, a Xennial is someone who was born on the cusp of being part of Generation X and being a Millennial. Someone who remembers being a latchkey kid and using a rotary telephone. Someone who remembers when Myspace and MSN messaging exploded in their 20s. Someone whose past feels deliciously slow, like a some sort of dreamy, hot, summer afternoon.
To a Xennial today, the world is whirling and fast, and I often wonder if I can keep up. It feels like the second I learn a new computer program for school it’s suddenly being updated to the newer, faster version. It feels like as soon as I buy a new cell phone, my provider is immediately offering me the next model. Yet when I stop in the midst of some nostalgic daydream, I get reminded of some wonderful, positive change that has happened in the world.
I recently started working in a harm-reduction and safe-consumption site. I am constantly in the middle of the presumed hell in the tent cities of Pandora Street. We hand out safe supplies and provide a safe environment for people to use drugs. In addition, we also pull people out of overdoses, and in just six weeks I have seen many people been brought back to life.
This type of service would never have even been considered 20 years ago. Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign was still living in people’s minds as the best way to combat the drug war. Even though the idea of safe consumption is still very controversial, I see all the time how people’s journey in this Bermuda Triangle-esque existence is made a little easier because of us. They are not shunned as they usually are in regular society—in fact, they are treated as if they are important members of our society, that they matter as everyone else does.
This kind of example—which I’m living—reinforces my often-questioned belief that the world is improving. It seems to be becoming, if slowly, more open to difference; however, there’s still so much more that has to happen. Although our society has become more accepting, the world has often progressed and regressed through time.
Time is the only thing that will never actually go backwards, and only with work and hope will we, as humans, follow alongside it.