To Continue with Hope

Let me write a personal blog entry today. The world shows no signs of slowing down, of the catastrophe being calmed. There is no extinguisher in the arson'd room with us.

And I think I'm okay with that. I have found myself steadfast on a handful of principles. To help as much as I sustainably can, and to not let the oppressive and violent forces of the world remove my joy nor optimism for a hopeful, better future.

The suffering is nothing new, the modality of suffering is novel for our generation, though. We were supposed to bear witness to world peace, economic stability, civil discussion and debate. A well-nourished community of diverse neighbours who welcome us with open arms.

I am a cusp baby[^1], I was born in 1996. This is on the edge of marketing generational demographics known as millennial and generation Z. I do not know a lot of people my age in comparison to other ages, because there are statistically not a lot of people my age. There was a [lull in birth rates](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr51/nvsr51_12.pdf) in the 1990's. The [overall birth rate declined 15 percent between 1991 and 1997](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10071841/), and [fertility rates fell across all groups during that decade](https://www.prb.org/resources/the-decline-in-u-s-fertility/). We are a smaller cohort, caught between the echo boom of the late 80s and the millennial surge of the early 2000s.

And I bring this up because I grew up in a world that was only looking upward and progressive. I was twelve-years-old when [Obama became President of the United States on November 4, 2008](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/november-4/barack-obama-elected-as-americas-first-black-president). After the geopolitical shift of 9/11 and the growing mainstream disapproval of the Iraq war, it seemed as though people were choosing love. Seeing that love is love. The American Experiment was still ongoing, still heartbeating.

I know now, nearly twenty years later, what an illusion this all was. There certainly was nothing progressive about Obama. But much worse than that, the great pendulum began swinging the other way once again. A pendulum I grew up believing could only go one way. I grew up in schools hosting assemblies to fight homophobia and racism. The walls were covered in the impact-font propaganda posters of acceptance and openness and tolerance. I went to my first pride parade when I was in middle school, and felt completely safe.

In my own province of Alberta, the conservative party lost their 44-year reign in 2015 when [Rachel Notley of the NDP (New Democratic Party, more left than Canada's Liberal party) was elected premier](https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/02/19/Rachel-Notley-Actually-Achieved/). The [so-called "Orange Chinook"](https://albertaviews.ca