Young People: Do a Great Job in Environmental Stewardship, And Love Every Minute of It

Speaking for environmentalist baby-boomers everywhere, I hope the millennials reading this take a far more active role in environmental stewardship than my generation did.  Obviously, I urge you to do your civic duty vis-à-vis voting, recycling, buying organic food from local farmers, boycotting the purveyors of poison and destruction (McDonalds, Coke, etc.), and so forth.  But also, I hope a great number of you take one step further and aggressively resist the stupidity and corruption in the world around you and strive for all you’re worth to create a world of sustainability, peace, and justice.

Most of all, I hope you enjoy every minute of it, and take advantage of every nanosecond of your youth, fleeting as it is.  And if you won’t take it from me, here’s a sonnet to that effect (my personal favorite) from your Uncle Billy Shakespeare.  Translation: dig it while you can, because you ain’t gonna have it forever.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.