I see these kids today, you know, the ones with the perfectly designed infographics about global injustices and the passionately worded calls to action for things happening thousands of miles away, and I think to myself, *I know that feeling*. I mean, I don't even — whatever. It’s this deep, almost existential need to feel like you’re part of something bigger, something important, something that actually *matters* in the grand scheme of things, and it feels so good to share those thoughts, to put them out there and connect with others who feel the same, and you get that little rush when someone likes your post or shares it. And then I remember the overflowing recycling bin down the street that’s been there for days, or the notice from the city council about the park cleanup that I keep meaning to sign up for, or the local elections that I just... didn't quite make it to the polls for, because the truth is, all that energy, all that passion for the *world*, often just stops at the edge of my own little neighborhood, my own little life, and that’s a confession I rarely admit even to myself. And it’s not just these kids, it’s us too, isn’t it? Or it was me, at least. I spent so many years thinking about the big things, the really profound philosophical ideas, the way society *should* be, and I could write pages, *pages*, about it all, but then the actual small, tangible actions that would make a difference right here, right now, for the people I actually see every day, they just seemed... less important, somehow. Or maybe too small, too mundane, to be worthy of all that grand intellectual energy, and it was easier to just stay home, to keep nurturing my own little world and let others handle the dirty work, the actual showing up. And that’s a heavy burden, that feeling of knowing you could do more, you *should* do more, but somehow the desire for the intellectual high, the feeling of *understanding* everything, overshadows the actual doing, and then the guilt just settles in your stomach like a rock. I mean, who am I to judge these young people, really? I spent decades raising children, making sure everyone else was fed and clothed and cared for, and my own identity just slowly, imperceptibly, dissolved into the background noise of daily life, and the only time I felt truly alive, truly myself, was when I was lost in a book, or debating some abstract concept in my head, but never actually *doing* anything that felt like it was just for me, for my own desire to contribute beyond the four walls of my home. And so, maybe it’s not about grand gestures or perfect attendance at every local meeting, but it's about the dissonance, the gap between what we preach and what we practice, and that’s the part that truly keeps me up at night, that feeling that we’re all just a little bit hypocritical, a little bit performative, and the quiet truth is, we’re all just trying to make sense of a world that feels too big and too broken to fix, and so we pick our battles, or we pick our infographics, and hope it’s enough. But it never really is, is it.