Woke or Snowflakes?

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter lately, and almost every other tweet somehow turns into an ugly war of words because neither party is willing to accept that their views are problematic. The thing I’ve noticed is that it’s always the problematic party that keeps attacking the party who calls them out for having toxic and outdated views.

You have no idea how many times I’ve seen people use the word ‘snowflake’ for those who cannot sit by and watch people be toxic to others. They’re not ‘snowflakes’; just because they called you out. We, as living beings in this world, have the power to evolve and constantly improve. Why then should we degrade those who we share this world with simply because they’re different?

Do not talk to me about tradition! Tradition, beliefs, and ideals mean nothing if they cause any kind of harm, whether knowingly or unknowingly to even one person. There’s a huge difference between being ‘conservative’ and being plain rude— a difference that a lot of people can’t tell. This is not me forcing my opinions on you; rather, this is me telling you that not everything that your parents taught you is right. They’re just humans, after all, and there’s a good chance that they were wrong about a lot of things.

What most people don’t get is that the ‘ideals’ that they were raised with are wrong on so many levels. It’s not about just black and white anymore— there is a whole spectrum of colours that a lot of us turn a blind eye to because we feel like it’s somebody else’s problem. More importantly, it’s because people with problematic perspectives think that they cannot change the way they look at the world. There’s always room for improvement, isn’t there?

That’s where we’re wrong. What’s learned can easily be unlearned to make way for a more tolerant and accepting perspective. It’s not easy to give up what you were raised with, I’ll give you that. But using that as an excuse to be absolutely crappy and unaccepting of somebody because they don’t play life by the same rules as you, is just such a mean thing to do.

Think about everything we’re doing wrong in the name of ‘humanity’. Having people beat up just because they look a certain way, disowning and committing hate crimes against those whose definitions of love and companionship are different from yours, not being able to accept the simple fact that there are more than just the two genders. Not everything you learnt in school was right and isn’t that the whole point of life? Learning things on our own after a point?

We are not going to be spoon-fed information after we leave school. Anything and everything that I have changed about my problematic perspectives were because I didn’t want to be somebody who could spread more hatred in this world. We already have enough people doing that for us. So why should we fan those destructive flames further when we have the power to change the way we look at others?

My generation isn’t filled with ‘snowflakes’ who get offended at everything you say. Just because we don’t support negative, problematic and toxic thinking anymore, it doesn’t mean that we get triggered. We’re just, in general, more accepting of the people who only want to live their lives peacefully without the fear of somebody throwing things at them. We just want to make it a safer world for them because the generations before us couldn’t do it, we just want to do better.

This isn’t a world where your outdated perspectives are going to work. You upgrade and update the devices you use, update the apps on them, hustle harder for a promotion, look for a bigger house, expect better means of commute— all of that and you still expect the world to run on your worn-out ideals. They might have worked for you in the past, but if you want to exist in peace in this world, you have to keep up and keep your mind open to change.

Unless and until we all start looking at things differently, we cannot hope for any kind of real progress. We have to do better. It’s not that hard, you know?

Cheerio! Xx

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Yours truly,
The Shubhster.

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Featured Image by Charlie Firth on Unsplash