Where Is The Village?

The Village isn’t how it used to be. After watching another 60’s movie, I’m caught up in the romanticism of idealism that once flowed through New York City. People weren’t always driven by success, but by passion and conviction. And now living for an art is a cliché.

Those grungy, old apartments for a couple hundred a month that were more like salvation habitats, now go for thousands and are more like dorm room frat parties.

I didn’t know the Village in the 60’s and I hardly know it now. I’ve written it off, like everything else as being overpriced and overexploited. I am envious of a time period I’ll never get to experience. A time period where everything was happening and opening up with such immediacy right in front of you, that you had no choice but to be affected. You had to respond some how: petition, protest, create, destroy, shoot and hit, yell and run. You were touched even if no one had any idea what the next day would bring. Everyone still felt the change and heard all the different voices. Nothing could be shut out. Is there a voice now? Is there conviction now?

I roll my eyes at a handful of protesters on the sidewalk and shrug after seeing snapshots of D.C marches. I don’t understand soldiers fighting proudly. I feel that I was never taught honor and ownership. I hear of another friend’s friend signing up to go overseas and I can’t figure out what they are fighting for. What they are fighting-- I understand. But what ideals of ours are they protecting?

I’m in a state of indifference that I can’t shake. A mask of success- big lights and name brands covers me, but inside I’m still waiting to get hit with some kind of mantra or religion that will fuel me into overdrive.

Is the simplistic answer of ‘it is, what it is’ really a way to sum our own time period up?

I’m living in a time where there is no voice to hear and multiple voices causes a headache. Ideals aren’t being broadcasted in living rooms anymore, they aren’t being shouted through megaphones into silence, but screamed into crowded, congested traffic where no one can hear. Where are our Martin Luther King Jr’s? Where’s our campus-wide news-covering protest? What is our revolutionary soundtrack?

If I want to hear anything, I’m going to have to turn off my television and go outside to the streets. Find the voices myself before my indifference turns into total neglect.