We most literally hold knowledge within the palms of our hands. Technology allows us to obtain and spread information at any given moment and do you know what we do with it? We stalk our exes on Instagram, scroll through memes and DIY’s on Pinterest, and re-watch clips of the “cash me ousside girl” on Youtube. Ignorance at its finest.

Ask any of us, any teenager, and I could almost promise you that none of us truly know what it going on in our world. The religious persecution in China, the civilians in Vietnam that live on boats above a polluted river and dead fish, and the Syrian War. That stuff goes right over our heads. Keeping up with our constantly changing trends is obviously so much more important right? Wrong.

April 2017, the United States launched 59 Tomahawk missiles in Syria engaging in the war that we have kept a “safe” distance from since now. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad uses chemical weapons against his own people. He is strangling his own people. Choking men, women, and children. How does this sadististic man live with himself? How can we sleep at night knowing that the world is tearing itself apart at every moment?

What is the purpose of learning history in school? We constantly sit through lectures about the World Wars. World War I is infamous for its trench warfare and uses of “pepper gas”. This weapon drowned soldiers and suffocated them to death. Our own ancestors, surrounded by oxygen, died by the hands of water. Ironic isn’t it? World War II is obsessed over by history buffs and common folk alike. More specifically, the Holocaust. The persecution of million of innocent Jewish people by the hand of a single man, Adolf Hitler. But it wasn’t just Hitler that killed them. It was the people who stood by and watched. Who pretended the screaming and sobbing of people at night were howling animals or screeching cars. Ignorance, once again, at its finest.

We have seen time and time again that violence has never, not once been a solution to any of our problems. It simply masks the situation, blowing it out of proportion. Countries wait for the rivers to be stained by the blood of their own citizens. They wait for their economy to crash. They wait for children to watch the parents starve and die. They wait until the cost outweighs the price. Only then, do they consider another option. Only then, do they consider negotiations of a peaceful solution. Why wasn’t this the initial? Why must we litter the earth with the bodies of our brothers and sisters?

We are only one voice in an ocean of billions. What can one voice possibly do? One voice can scream. One voice and yell. One voice can shout. Social media provides a platform for thoughts, ideas, opinions, and feelings. It gives us an opportunity to be heard. I am tired of those restless nights hoping the world will change. The world needs to change but that can’t happen if we continue ignoring our past and present. Our future is at stake and I don’t know about you but I really love living on planet earth.